Jerusalem to Invest in Arab Areas

Jerusalem's mayor Uri Lupolianski, right, points at an aerial photograph of Jerusalem at the City Hall, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007. Jerusalem's mayor announced a new plan to revamp long-neglected Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem on Wednesday, a step meant to counter growing talk of dividing the city ahead of a crucial Mideast peace conference next week. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) (Sebastian Scheiner - AP)

Pepe Alalo, a dovish member of Jerusalem's City Council, said Lupolianski's plan was "a show for the media" timed for the peace conference.

The new plan budgets only a fraction of what east Jerusalem needs to close the gap with the Jewish parts of the city, Alalo said.

And with the projects so far from implementation, he said, the timing of Lupolianski's announcement made clear it was aimed as a counterweight to the government's peace moves, not at making life better for east Jerusalem residents.

"What is behind this is 100 percent political interest," he said.

In 2005, 62 percent of the city's Arab families lived under the poverty line, according to statistics compiled by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, an independent research center, compared to 21 percent of Jewish families.

Classrooms in east Jerusalem elementary schools have an average of about 36 students, compared with 24 students per classroom in Jewish neighborhoods, according to Ir Amim, an advocacy group that works for coexistence in the city.

Unlike the Palestinians of the West Bank, east Jerusalem residents receive substantial health and welfare benefits from Israel and can move freely throughout the country. But with few exceptions, they have refused to participate in municipal politics, deeming such involvement to be acceptance of Israeli rule. This has served to further distance them from the city's decision-makers and budgets.

Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian cartographer and Jerusalem expert, dismissed the new initiative as late and inadequate.

"Forty years after exempting east Jerusalem from development, they are now trying to beautify their situation. We have 40 years of neglect, and we won't be equal to west Jerusalem, regardless of what is spent," Tufakji said.