Jerusalem’s new rail station will be named after ‘brave’ Trump
ISRAEL’S transport minister yesterday said he was pushing ahead with controversial plans to build a highspeed train network under Jerusalem’s Old City and declared its main station would be named after Donald Trump.
Yisrael Katz’s proposal would involve digging two underground stations and excavating more than two miles of tunnel, ending up at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.
The project would extend the soon-to-open multibillion-pound rail line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and help ferry around 11 million tourists and worshippers a year to the wall.
The route will run close to – but not directly under – the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition holds that Jesus was buried, and a contested holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
The same area is also home to the alaqsa Mosque, one of the oldest in Islam. Palestinians fear work could see the structure compromised.
Similar excavations by Israel have sparked violent Palestinian protests in the past. The project is estimated to cost $700m (£522m) and, if approved, would take four years to complete.
Mr Katz, a senior Cabinet official who also serves as Israel’s intelligence minister, is a close ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and is seen as his likely successor as head of the Likud party.
His office said the minister advanced the plan in a recent meeting with Israeli railway executives and declared it a national priority, meaning construction on the line would be expedited and started within the next year.
Mr Katz proposed naming the station after the US president as thanks “for his brave and historic decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital” earlier this month.
Mr Trump gave the Israeli claim to Jerusalem a major boost after declaring the US would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city.
That sparked protests around the Muslim world as the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of any future state.
The UN last week rejected Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reaffirming that the city’s status should be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians.
Ikrema Sabri, a senior Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, denounced the planned train line extension, saying that Palestinians would not accept “any change or act in the occupied territories”.
He said that “giving the name of Trump to this project will not give it any legitimacy. It would be just another implementation of the unacceptable decision of president Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.”