A secular mayor for Jerusalem | Money, faith and votes | The Economist

A secular mayor for Jerusalem | Money, faith and votes | The Economist: "Money, faith and votes

Nov 13th 2008 | JERUSALEM
From The Economist print edition
A secular entrepreneur is elected to run the holy city

THE hollowness of Israel’s rhetoric about “united Jerusalem” is never starker than on local election day, when the city’s 537,000 adults, together with the rest of Israel, can go to the polls to pick their new mayor. Among Jerusalem’s Palestinians, who make up some 30% of the citizenry, hardly anyone bothers to vote. In East Jerusalem, the mainly Arab part of the city captured and annexed by Israel in 1967, polling stations in schools and public buildings stay yawningly empty, apart from a trickle of municipal employees and their families.

This time was no different, except that most of the Palestinians who did vote in Jerusalem on November 11th gave their support to Arkady Gaydamak, a colourful but mysterious ex-Russian oligarch who has been trying to make his way in Israeli politics despite a French warrant for his arrest on gun-running charges. With the help of Palestinians, he got a paltry 3.5% of the overall vote. Palestinian commentators attributed his modest popularity in their community not just to his wealth but to the fact that he doesn’t look Jewish.

This could hardly be said f"