Today (Wednesday), Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli inaugurated Route 16, which is supposed to be the new entrance to the City of Jerusalem. During the festive ceremony, she sharply criticized the state of the city and the extremism in it.
"Jerusalem should be a city that is not ablaze with fanaticism, hatred, violence, and war, but a city whose great holiness brings with it coexistence and tolerance. A city that will forever be the united capital of the State of Israel, but one whose unity is not only a function of territories and borders but of inner experience that reflects true unity. A city where everyone has complete freedom of religion and the possibility to live according to his or her faith, without any religious or secular coercion," claimed Michaeli.
She continued, "Unfortunately, there is a strange phenomenon in Jerusalem, that those who talk about the integrity of Jerusalem are the ones who divide it with their own hands into Jews and Arabs, secular haredi, men and women. Jerusalem is divided again and again into good and bad and on this ground, extremism, incitement, and terrorism sprout ".
"Jerusalem can and should be the capital of peace for Israel and the world, and for that, a political solution is required in which Jerusalem will also be part of it. We must not give up our vision of security and peace, just as we must never give up a vision of peace in Jerusalem that comes from the holiness of this city," she added.
The mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, came up to sharply respond to the minister: "Each one of us should ask ourselves what we did for eastern Jerusalem, what we did so that the eastern part of the city would be united with the western part."
"Dear Merav, I'm not coming to you with complaints, but about the decades in which there was no investment in infrastructure in the eastern part of the city. We struggle every day to receive budgets and build schools and access roads in the eastern part of the city, and that's the only way we can achieve real peace in this city."
"Don't worry, Honorable Minister. This city is the real Israel, with all sectors of the population. The special thing here is the creation of a status quo so that everyone can live with everyone else. God forbid if something is not good in Jerusalem, it is not good in the whole State of Israel," he concluded.
Route 16 will be the new and central entrance to Jerusalem and with a continuous drive of several minutes from the Motza Interchange, it will be possible to reach all neighborhoods in the south and west of the city through two underground tunnels. This is a project of the Jerusalem Municipality, the Transportation Ministry, and Israel Roads (Netivei Yisrael), carried out by Shafir Civil and Marine Engineering Ltd.
The road will mainly serve those coming from the west. This is a modern road with a speed limit of 110 km/h and three interchanges along it: in the Motza area, in Nahal Revida near Givat Shaul and next to Shmuel Bait Street.