Italian firm withdraws from contentious Jerusalem cable car project, 5th company to do so

A fifth foreign firm has pulled out of a controversial plan to build a cable car that would cross from West Jerusalem to the Old City of Jerusalem, The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

Last month, the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) issued a notice of intent to award a contract without a public tender to Italian cable car engineering consultancy ROPES, the report said, in an apparent push to renew the stagnated plan.

However, the company’s CEO Stephan Obexer told The Guardian that it would not be taking the job due to another commitment in India.

According to the Haaretz daily, citing Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the company’s owner admitted accepting the offer to consult on the project, but later regretted the decision.

There was no formal statement from ROPES on the matter.

The Italian firm was the fifth international company in recent years to pull out of the cable car project, Haaretz noted, after three French firms and one Swiss company also withdrew from the venture.

In at least one instance, a decision to withdraw was due to the French government approaching the company and asking it to do so, the report said.

The NIS 200 million ($64 million) project approved by the government in 2019 calls for a 1.4-kilometer (nearly a mile) track running from the First Station shopping and entertainment area in West Jerusalem over a valley mainly populated by Palestinian East Jerusalemites to the Old City’s Dung Gate, near the Western Wall and the City of David archaeological site

Proponents of the long-touted but elusive cable car argue that it is the least disruptive — and most financially responsible — way to transport up to 3,000 visitors per hour from West Jerusalem to the Western Wall.

Those in favor include the Tourism Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality.

But opponents say the plan is obtrusive and culturally and politically irresponsible, and will not solve traffic issues. It has faced opposition over the years from rights organizations, heritage professionals, archaeologists and internationally renowned architects.

In 2019, the Israel Association of Architects and Town Planners decried the plan to build the final station for the cable car within the controversial Kedem complex being planned by the right-wing City of David Foundation (Ir David/El’ad). The project would also cause visual and acoustic damage to the residents of the crowded Palestinian village of Silwan, over which the cable car is set to pass on its way to the Dung Gate, it said.

The association also decried the lack of preservation activities associated with the plan, and said the cable car would be an eyesore.

However, in 2022, the High Court of Justice rejected petitions against the cable car plan, shutting down the legal opposition route for opponents while acknowledging that it was a “complex issue.”

Despite the court ruling effectively clearing the way for construction of the cable car to begin, no progress has been made in the years since.

Earlier this month, the Emek Shaveh organization warned that the apparent renewal of the project after it had stagnated for a number of years “threatens the Palestinian communities of Silwan and the timeless landscape of Jerusalem’s historic core.”

“Over the years, its planners have failed to demonstrate that the cable car will meet any transportation need,” the statement said. “It is clear that the project’s central motivation is to consolidate the settlers’ hold on Silwan and adjacent areas as part of an effort to displace Palestinians from the Historic Basin and reshape Jerusalem’s cultural landscape.

“More specifically, the project aims to reroute tourism away from the established routes through the Muslim and Christian Quarters, bypassing the historic approaches through Damascus and Jaffa Gates, and seeks to funnel visitors through the settler-controlled City of David site,” said the watchdog.