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.