Jerusalem mayoral candidate Moshe Lion and his wife cast their votes in the second round of local council elections in Jerusalem November 13, 2018.
A religious Jewish candidate won election as mayor of Jerusalem on Wednesday in a run-off against a secular contender for a post that shapes Israel's rule over the holy city at the heart of its conflict with the Palestinians.
Moshe Lion, a skullcap-wearing bureaucrat favored by two key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist cabinet, defeated Ofer Berkovitch, the 35-year-old deputy mayor, after neither took enough votes in a five-man contest two weeks ago to win outright.
Nearly final results after Tuesday's run-off gave Lion close to 52 percent of the vote.
Israel is making the visa process difficult in order to reduce the number of Turkish tourists visiting Jerusalem, according to Turkish tour operators.Mehmet Esmer, the owner of Turkish-based tour company Mihmandar, said on Tuesday that Israel’s Interior Ministry has aggravated the visa requirements for Turkish citizens. “There are restrictions,” he told Anadolu Agency.Esmer said Israel requires Turkish citizens to pay deposits when applying for visas, and added: “I paid $60,000 four months ago as a guarantee for four tour groups. Still couldn’t get the money back. No news from the Interior Ministry yet.”Normally they do three or four tours a month, and make a lot of money from them, he said.Esmer said that some people cannot get their deposits back, if -- for instance -- they unfurl a flag at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, take pictures in forbidden areas, or argue with the Israeli police.“They try to reduce the number of Turks visiting Jerusalem. Everybody knows that. Many people from other parts of the world are coming but none of them are subjected to this.”Esmer added that they had to cancel many Jerusalem tours due to Israel’s treatment.- ‘We canceled 6 tours’Echoing Esmer, Numan Balci, the owner of Kible tours, said that the $15,000 deposit is not fair."They don't ask some groups for the deposit, while they do ask others. We don't know what the policy is," he told Anadolu Agency.Also, Balci said Israel only issues one visa per person per year, and this is another factor driving away visitors.“Israel’s practices change on a daily basis,” he said, adding: “We had to cancel six tours due to these circumstances. The government should encourage people to visit sacred sites, especially Jerusalem.”Turkey urges Israel to end attacks on GazansIsrael suspends talks for Gaza truceHamas says holding contacts to halt Israeli attacks
Israel reportedly restricting tourist visas for Turks
The ballot was held as part of nationwide Israeli municipal elections in which many candidates run as independents or on non-traditional party lists, making it difficult to gauge any broader political impact from the results.
While Netanyahu’s own approval ratings are strong, a senior member of his party and cabinet who ran for Jerusalem mayor with his blessing, Zeev Elkin, came in third in the first round of the poll.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday said conspiracies are being plotted against the Palestinian cause.“The Palestinian cause is going through difficult times,” Abbas said after laying a wreath of flowers on the tomb of iconic leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.“They do not want a state or entity for our people,” Abbas said. “We will keep struggling until we achieve the right of the Palestinian people to decide their fate and establish their independent state.”In December, U.S. President Donald Trump triggered world outcry after recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.Jerusalem remains at the heart of the perennial Mideast conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem -- occupied by Israel since 1967 -- might eventually serve as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.Palestinians are organizing several activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday to mark the 14th anniversary of Arafat’s death.On Nov. 11, 2004, Arafat died in France -- under highly suspicious circumstances -- at the age of 75. Until now, doctors have been unable to determine the exact cause of his death.Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a claim denied by Tel Aviv.
Conspiracies plotted against Palestinian cause: Abbas
The Jerusalem vote was largely boycotted by Palestinians who make up a third of the city’s population. They live in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move that has not won international recognition.
Many Jerusalem Palestinians complain of entrenched neglect by the Israeli municipality. A Palestinian candidate who bucked the boycott by running for the administrative Jerusalem City Council failed to garner enough votes to get in. Both Lion and Berkovitch had vowed to appeal to all sectors of the city, 21 percent of its Jewish population is secular and another 43 percent are religiously traditional and 36 percent are ultra-Orthodox.
Jewish settlers on Friday morning vandalized Palestinian buildings and vehicles in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Salfit, according to a Palestinian activist.Activist Wissam al-Dik told Anadolu Agency that a group of settlers had entered the city’s Kafr al-Dik district at dawn, where they spray-painted racist slogans in Hebrew -- including “Death to the Arabs” -- on walls and vehicles before leaving the area.Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank are frequently targeted by extremist Jewish settlers.Hamas-appointed civil servants get salaries from QatarAround 650,000 Israelis currently live in more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, when Israel occupied both areas.International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement building activity there as illegal.The Palestinians want both these territories -- along with the Gaza Strip -- for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
Jewish settlers damage Palestinian property in West Bank
Hundreds of Jewish settlers forced their way into East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday, according to a Palestinian official. “Some 200 settlers stormed the compound under the protection of Israeli police,” Firas al-Dibs, a Palestinian official with Jerusalem’s Religious Endowments Authority (which oversees the city's Muslim and Christian holy sites), said in a statement.According to al-Dibs, the settlers were accompanied by Israeli MP Shuli Mualem of the right-wing Jewish Home party.In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lifted a three-year ban on Israeli government officials and lawmakers visiting Al-Aqsa, allowing members of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) to visit the flashpoint site once every three months. Saudis used Israeli spyware to track Khashoggi: SnowdenIn late 2015, Netanyahu had banned MPs from entering the Al-Aqsa compound in an effort to calm tensions that had erupted across the Israeli-occupied West Bank following repeated incursions by Jewish settlers into the site. For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount”, claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times. Israel occupied East Jerusalem, in which the Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Middle East War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as its “eternal and undivided” capital in a move never recognized by the international community.
Jewish settlers converge on J'lem's Aqsa Mosque complex