After pulling a considerable number of the non-religious vote in the Jerusalem mayoral race, those voters are accusing Mayor Nir Barkat of betraying them. They feel that the choice portfolios in the city government are being given to Shas the “extreme right-wing” instead of the parties that backed his reelection bid.
The criticism was sparked by the deal signed with dati leumi parties that did not support him. There are rumors that Shas is on the verge of signing a deal which includes running the city’s chareidi education department. Meretz, Hisorarus, and the Yerushalmim parties feel that Shas did not come out in support of Barkat. They are calling the mayor’s actions a “knife in the back” for not closing deals with his supporters before turning to the opposition.
They are also afraid that Aryeh King will receive the city’s environmental affairs portfolio, calling King a “right-wing fanatic”. King lives in the Maale Zeitim neighborhood and remains devoted to liberating areas of the eastern capital that are currently occupied by Arabs. He did not come out backing Barkat. The left-wing secular parties find this objectionable and express outrage over the fact that the mayor intends to give King a local government portfolio. Meretz calls this “spitting in our faces” for King is a red flag for the extreme left-wing party.
Aides to the mayor deny allegations of favoritism and call on all the parties to “roll up your sleeves and begin getting serious about working.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
IN order to understand the competition and rush for lead positions, YWN should come out and explain what does the Jerusalem Council do?
What power, strength is in the hands of the Educational, Financial and Building portfolios? What are the parties fighting over? Money, power, prestige, jobs. An explanation is needed for understanding.
Aryeh King is a tzaddik and moser nefesh for Yerushalayim. A fare amount of Arabs even have a healthy respect for him because he stands for Torah (many of them admire Jews who are faithful to our heritage) and by working to bring equal rule of law sanitation and security to all parts of the city, including their neighborhoods, they benefit as well while all the left wing and arab politicians do is stir the pot of hate without doing anything tachlis to actually help them (but the news would never report that in a million years).
The fact that Meretz hates him so much should make it obvious what a good man he is! May Hashem give him the koach to really do good things for this city
Israeli politics can be alot of fun – if you don’t take it seriously.