Likud Knesset member Anat Berko arrived at the Prime Minister’s Office on Sept. 24 with a group of experts with whom she about a year ago developed a plan to change the face of Jerusalem. They held an extended meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the course of which Berko showed him a plan for redesigning and partitioning Israel's capital. Such a program, developed by a strong right-winger like Berko, who was personally appointed to Likud's Knesset list by Netanyahu, is no less than a political and diplomatic powder keg.
This was not the first tete-a-tete between Netanyahu and Berko on the volatile subject of Jerusalem. They had sat together several months earlier, when MK Berko showed the prime minister the general principles behind her program to separate from Jerusalem as many Arab-Palestinian neighborhoods as possible. The proclaimed goal is to increase the Jewish majority in the city, reduce the economic burden on the state treasury and improve security. Netanyahu did not authorize the principles or express agreement, but he did encourage Berko to continue to work on the program and present it to him later as a consolidated working paper. That is what transpired on Sept. 24.
