Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski´s decision on Sunday to halt construction of the Mugrabi Gate walkway until the city prepares a proper plan was a bombshell considering that he and the city council had pushed the project through via an expedited approval process in recent months. And then, after work had started and the cabinet approved its continuation, Lupolianski froze it until the proper process by the Municipal Planning and Construction Commission could be implemented, including allowing residents to air their objections. The mayor´s decision means the project will now be delayed for several months; the committees involved in the process could even decide to cancel it altogether.

Did Lupolianski take this conciliatory step in order to calm the storms that arose this week in the city? Opinions are divided. The mayor´s associates say the decision was a personal and professional one taken after consulting relevant experts, including municipal and government legal advisers, to counter the feeling that Israel was making a grab for the area, and out of a desire to allow Jerusalem´s citizens to have a say in a controversial process.

Sources close to the mayor also rejected conspiracy theories. "Lupolianski received no phone call from the prime minister asking him to help him back off from the renovation project that had caused unrest," they say. "Neither was he asked to change his decision by the attorney general or the city´s legal advisers. On the contrary, the city´s legal adviser determined that the permit issued by the city licensing authority was sufficient, and there was no need to involve the city planning commission. Besides, if Olmert had known about Lupolianski´s plan, he would not have gotten a decision passed that morning in the cabinet approving construction of the bridge. He would have waited for Lupolianski´s announcement."

However, city council member Pepe Alalo, who is also a member of the municipal planning commission and chairman of the city´s oversight committee, argues that this was a maneuver by Lupolianski, who discovered too late that without the project´s proper review by the commission, the High Court of Justice or attorney general might have halted the work. "The mayor comes out looking like a hero coming to save the situation, while he is one of the people to blame for the situation that was created," Alalo says. "He knows very well that everything done so far with the building of the bridge was illegal." Every balcony in the Old City requires a permit from the planning commission, while suddenly, in such a sensitive case, the permit for a bridge was given without going through proper channels, he adds.

Lupolianski insists that he has all required authorization, but Alalo says all of his attempts to see it failed. "As chairman of the oversight committee, I asked to see the material but was told it was irrelevant."

The renovation plan, to which the government contributed NIS 5 million, was opposed by senior archaeologists who said the bridge would harm the Southern Wall Archaeological Park, over which it would pass. Since February 2005, when a temporary bridge was built to provide access to the Temple Mount via the Mugrabi Gate after the old walkway partially collapsed, police and other bodies have been pressing for a permanent structure.

In November, the local planning commission approved construction of a permanent bridge on condition that authorization be obtained from the police and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Alalo and Danny Zeidman of the Ir Amim association wrote an angry letter last week to the attorney general in which they stated that the city´s permit for the bridge was illegal; it was not a replacement for the old bridge but an entirely new one that is different from the old Mugrabi ramp - 200 meters long compared to 75 meters. (© Copyright 2007 Haaretz. 02/13/07)