Time for action

This week we marked 40 years since the liberation of Jerusalem from the Jordanian occupation and its unification under Israeli sovereignty. Many speeches have been delivered, some of them containing much sense while others featuring a pile of poetic and hollow declarations that are meaningless even for those who delivered them

Empty words regarding Jerusalem's unity and efforts to boost its centrality to the people and state are nothing but hypocrisy when they are not backed by deeds aimed at strengthening the capital.

Even the word "center" is not used in the context of Jerusalem these days. Despite the fact that we are talking about the nation's largest city, and even though it is located in Israel's geographic center – public discourse views Tel Aviv as the "center." A contributing factor is the fact that many government offices are located in Tel Aviv or maintain a large portion of their activity in the "center," rather than in the capital, as is the case in any other normal country.

The prime minister and most government ministers have offices and hold meetings in Tel Aviv, and Knesset committees also occasionally hold their sessions in Tel Aviv. Our "state radio" alternately broadcasts from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and even the "army radio" station is located in Jaffa, rather than in the capital.

Beyond the duplication and waste, what we have here is contempt to the centrality of Israel's capital. Even Israel's sole international airport is marked on flight tickets as TLV rather than JLM-TLV, as would be proper for an airport located between Israel's two main cities and serving both of them. Why then do we complain about foreign envoys who ignore and do not recognize Israel's capital?

The climax is the Defense Ministry's and IDF General Staff headquarters' insistence on staying at the heart of Tel Aviv. At a time when we hear about migration out of Jerusalem and the need to attract young Israelis to the capital, we can at the very least move these important institutions to Jerusalem. Such a national project may lead thousands of IDF career officers and their families to move to Jerusalem and greatly contribute to changing its face and the demographic balance there in favor of the Zionist sector, which would mean reducing the rate of Arabs and ultra-Orthodox in the city.

As long as we speak pompously about Jerusalem but continue to focus on the "center" – the crowded Tel Aviv area – we are talking about hypocritical, hollow slogans.

Invest in east Jerusalem too

There is also great importance to transportation to and from Jerusalem: Only one major road artery is incommensurate with the city's centrality. These days we are seeing the completion of a "new" entrance to Jerusalem's northern neighborhoods, but this too is premised on Highway 1, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, which is already overly crowded.

Instead of investing more money and inflicting more damage on the scenery along this route, we should be investing in Highway 443, so that Jerusalem enjoys another access road that is even more convenient and safer. We must not let the fact that it runs slightly outside the Green Line disqualify it as a vital road to Jerusalem.

The area where Highway 443 runs through is also the most suitable, safest, and fastest train route to Jerusalem. Only a narrow-minded political approach forced train planners to build tracks that run parallel to Highway 1, within the Jerusalem corridor. These tracks damage the scenery in their above-ground sections and hide it from view in other sections, while going through long and expensive tunnels.

The absurd reached a climax in the arrival in Jerusalem, at a station located deep underground, only to make sure there is no deviation from the Green Line's limits. After all, even those who wish to see small border changes must agree that the strip of land between the Green Line and Highway 443 would be a part of the State of Israel.

Those who truly intend to maintain Jerusalem's unity must also invest in infrastructure and services granted to east Jerusalem residents. The perpetuation of the gaps between the capital's two sections conveys a message of transience. Regrettably, all Israeli governments contributed to it in the past 40 years.

Meanwhile, in addition to the poetic declarations regarding Jerusalem's centrality we occasionally hear about plans to expand Tel Aviv to the west, create manmade islands in the Mediterranean, and transfer the Sde Dov airport to one of them.

Yet instead of ventures meant to make the Tel Aviv region and coastal plain even more crowded and move the Jews to the sea, it would be better to expand Jerusalem to the east, in the direction of Maaleh Adumim. The words "towards the vistas of the east" should not just be a part of our national anthem, but rather, also serve as a national, essential plan for expanding Israel's capital and boosting the Zionist portion of its population