Like many Israeli officials, whenever Nir Barkat, the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, wants to make a political splash among Israeli voters, he turns to the Palestinian arena, which is the gift that keeps giving. In April 2013, when Barkat was running for a second mayoral term, he turned to the Palestinian sector of Jerusalem to announce an ambitious project to create a cable car route connecting the Mount of Olives to the Western Wall. The goal of the cable car route is to physically unify East and West Jerusalem.

In October 2013, Barkat was re-elected as mayor. The project, which was supposed to begin two years later, seemed to have failed in 2015, when French company Suez Environment that was to take part in the project pulled out in March 2015 under the pretext of “wanting to avoid any political interpretation.” Another French company, Safege, which was to participate in the planning of the cable car project, also pulled out in March 2015, once the French realized that this was a highly controversial political plan and not simply a business project.

With his second four-year term coming to an end, Barkat is aiming for a much higher goal: that of the Prime Ministry. Barkat has now resurrected the failed project and has succeeded in getting political approvals of the relevant Israeli ministries. Speaking to Likud activists, Barkat is seen on a video uploaded on his Facebook page Aug. 25 displaying the route of the cable car that will run from the Mount of Olives to the edge of Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram al-Sharif with stops at the Church of Gethsemane and in the Abu Tor and Silwan neighborhoods. 

According to the Terrestrial Jerusalem website, the original cable car route would have a length of 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) with three spurs: the first would be 1,300 meters (0.8 miles) in length leading from the old train station in Abu Tor to an area adjacent to the ramparts of the Old City, between Dung Gate and the external containing wall of Haram al-Sharif. The second spur would be 1,000 meters in length linking the Old City to the Mount of Olives, near the Seven Arches Hotel. A third spur of 500 meters would extend from the Mount of Olives to the area adjacent to Gethsemane. Since 2013, the project has changed in length and number of spurs, according to Daniel Seidmann, an Israeli lawyer specialized in the current developments in East Jerusalem.