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Jerusalem mayor: City’s diverse residents are ‘all my children’

FILE -- In this Oct. 8, 2015 file photo, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his Jerusalem office. Fifty years after Israel conquered east Jerusalem, Barkat says the anniversary is a time to celebrate, despite the deep rifts and occasional bursts of violence that disrupt daily life in the volatile city. But like other prominent politicians of the hard-line Likud party, Barkat says Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli control, rejects Arab claims that they are second-class residents and insists the city's diverse array of residents are “all my children." (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)

JERUSALEM — Fifty years after Israel conquered east Jerusalem, the city’s mayor says the upcoming anniversary is a time to celebrate, despite the deep rifts and occasional bursts of violence that disrupt daily life in the volatile city.

But like other prominent politicians of the hard-line Likud Party, Nir Barkat says Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli control, rejects Arab claims they are second-class residents — even though the vast majority are not even citizens — and insists the city’s diverse array of inhabitants are “all my children.”

“Jerusalem is the crown jewel. It will always stay the united, undivided capital of the Jewish people with respect to all religions,” the 57-year-old Barkat told The Associated Press this week at his office, which overlooks the Old City. “The prayer of all Jews, for thousands of years, is to return to the city of God, the holy city of Jerusalem.”

Barkat presides over perhaps the most complicated city in the world: deeply divided between Arab and Jew, religious and secular, rich and poor — and claimed as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians.

On the other side of the Mideast conflict, the half-century mark of Israel’s victory in the 1967 six-day war is being perceived quite differently.

“They can call it 50 years of whatever they want. But for us, the Palestinians, it is 50 years of occupation and this occupation should end,” said Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs.

Jerusalem’s nearly 900,000 residents are split almost evenly three ways among secular and modern Orthodox Jewish residents, Muslim Palestinians and ultra-Orthodox Jews. All in all, it’s one of Israel’s poorest cities.

The Arab population lives almost entirely in east Jerusalem, where many neighborhoods suffer from lack of resources, poor infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms and overall neglect.

Recent figures gathered by the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research think-tank found that 82 percent of the Arab population lives below the poverty line, compared to 28 percent of the Jewish population, among several statistics indicating vast gaps between the groups.

In another indicator of the wide disparities, Ir Amim, an Israeli advocacy group that promotes coexistence in the city, found in a 2014 report that the municipality allocated only an estimated 10 to 13 percent of its annual budget to east Jerusalem, even though Arab residents make up just over a third of the city’s population.

“I admit we have a lot of catch-up to do,” said Barkat, who became mayor in 2008 after a successful run as high-tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Since retiring from his business career, Barkat has worked for the city for a token salary of one shekel (27 cents) a year.

“I’m committed and I’m accountable to close gaps for all neighborhoods, Muslim, Christian, Jews — everyone,” he said.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that has not been recognized internationally.

The fate of Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While past peace talks have discussed partition options, Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says that’s out of the question.

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