Moshe Leon won the election for Jerusalem's next mayor on Nov. 13. The next day, Leon’s key sponsor, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, resigned his office. The back-to-back events were no coincidence. The new mayor, by his own admission, is “in the pocket” of his “boss” Liberman, as he terms his long-time political benefactor. In recordings from 2014 obtained by Haaretz, Leon is heard saying that Liberman takes his support for granted. Undoubtedly, the hawkish head of Yisrael Beitenu will turn the holy city into his political bedrock ahead of the elections to the 21st Knesset, which may be moved up to early 2019 due to the shrinking of the government coalition following Liberman’s resignation. Still, he will be obliged to share it with Leon’s other sponsor, ultra-Orthodox Shas chair Aryeh Deri.

The Likud's battle cry — grab as many right-wing voters as you can — burst forth even before the victory celebrations by Leon and his sponsors died down. On Nov. 15, the Likud faction in the Knesset set out to fast-track a new law enabling construction in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, at the foot of the Temple Mount. Spearheading the project is the non-profit organization Elad, the darling of the political right and its wealthy American backers.

Another example of right-wing zeal in promoting radical projects that discriminate against Arabs is the restoration of the 19th century Yemenite synagogue in Silwan. This past August, Likud activists attended the inauguration of a project to restore the synagogue. The ceremony was conducted by another nongovernmental organization, Ateret Cohanim, Elad’s partner/rival in the campaign to settle Jews all over the area of Jerusalem known as the Holy Basin, where many of Judaism and Islam’s holiest sites are located. At the ceremony, Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Ze’ev Elkin, who lost the mayoral race to Leon in the election runoff this month, called Ateret Cohanim's founder Mati Dan “the greatest Cohen of them all, for whom we all work in the Knesset and the government” for the sake of “restoring these sites of the Israeli people.” Leon was also present.

The violent clashes set off by irresponsible Israeli politicians in Jerusalem’s Old City are too numerous to count. Nir Barkat, the city’s mayor for the past decade, was held hostage by the radical right in the city council to such an extent that he abetted in the violation of court orders to vacate an apartment building named Jonathan House (after spy Jonathan Pollard) erected by Israeli settlers in the heart of Silwan. On the other hand, when Barkat sought to promote a precedent-setting plan to build thousands of housing units for the city’s Palestinian residents, Ateret Cohanim joined petitions by right-wing forces against the plan.