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Initiative to divide Jerusalem faces own internal split

Former security establishment officials who supported the plan of former Minister Haim Ramon to divide Jerusalem now claim that he uses racist means to gain political popularity.
Senior Israeli Labour Party member Hain Ramon addresses party delegates
in Tel Aviv, July 2, 2002, at a convention called to discuss options
for peace with the Palestinians and Labour's continued partnership in
the coalition of hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Labour leader
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, also Israel's defence minister, rebuffed Ramon's
criticism of his performance and welcomed him to run as a rival in the
next party primary. REUTERS/Havakuk Levison

HL/CRB - RTR74C6
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Former Minister Haim Ramon, the former chairman of the National Labor Union and a senior member of the Labor Party, was the sponsor and founder of the movement Save Jewish Jerusalem. In recent months, he spun ties with left and centrist activists, convincing them to join his initiative to prevent an Arab majority within the boundaries of Jerusalem by breaking away from the Palestinians neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

It remains unclear whether Ramon’s initiative aims at paving his way back into politics, although some of the movement’s members allege that in recent months that has been the only thing on his mind. Al-Monitor discovered that this situation — together with a hatred-inciting video clip that was published on the movement's behalf — generated a wave of senior movement members quitting the initiative only six months after it was established.

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