Speaking to Gulf News in Dubai, Hassan-Nahoum, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem said she wanted East Jerusalem to become the R&D back-office of the Middle East.
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#UAE #Israel #Jerusalem
Read the full story: https://bit.ly/33Q0h0F
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#UAE #Israel #Jerusalem
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NewsTranscript
00:00First of all, like you said, Jerusalem is the most diverse city in the country.
00:05It is the largest city in the country, and it's also the poorest city in the country,
00:09unfortunately, even though it's a capital city.
00:12And the reason why it's the poorest city in the country is because 25% of the city is
00:16ultra-Orthodox, and over 50% of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city live under the poverty line.
00:21The Arab population is 37% of the city, which is the largest minority, of course, and they
00:26are almost 70% under the poverty line.
00:29And you ask a very good question, why?
00:31Why is the Arab population in such a situation?
00:35And unfortunately, the reasons are historical, and there are various reasons.
00:40Let's start with the basics, education.
00:4390% of children in East Jerusalem, or the Arab children of Jerusalem, are educated by
00:48Palestinian Authority schools.
00:50They don't teach Hebrew.
00:52And so this is the core of the poverty.
00:54The core of the poverty is that when kids get to 18 years old, they're living in a city
01:00with language they don't speak.
01:01And then three years ago, a brave government minister decided that something needed to
01:07be done to keep the city looking, feeling, and being one.
01:11And that was to close social gaps.
01:14So unprecedented amount of budget was allocated by the government for three things.
01:19One is to reform the education system.
01:21So one of the things that we're doing is trying to encourage the schools to adopt the
01:27Israeli curriculum for Arabs, like the other Arab Israelis in our country.
01:31The other thing that we're doing is infrastructural development.
01:35So new pavements and new schools, new classrooms, new high-tech parks.
01:42We're currently in the process of planning a high-tech park in East Jerusalem, in Wadi
01:47Joz, called Silicon Wadi.
01:50And that will have 250,000 meters of office space, commercial centers, and hotels.
01:56Of course, quality employment, which is what this is all about.
02:00I want young Arab men and women to be part of the prosperity of the startup nation and
02:06take good engineering jobs, work in high-tech, and have better lives for themselves and their
02:11children.
02:12When they settle on a visa regime and Israelis can come here with an Israeli passport, Israel
02:17is open to every country in the world.
02:19This is what they're hashing out right now, a visa regime, a mutual visa regime.
02:23The minute we have that, I'll say, we're almost there.
02:26The minute we have direct flights, I say, we're almost there.
02:28Well, I'm very excited by the tourism opportunities.
02:31I hold a tourism portfolio for the city, and I'm very excited, not just for the fact that
02:36so many people can come and visit Jerusalem, pray in whichever prayer they want.
02:45We hold the torch for freedom of worship.
02:48Under us, everybody can worship wherever they want.
02:52And we're very excited by sizable Muslim tourism, which we've never really had.
02:58We've had, you know, drips and drabs from different places, but we have a lot of Christian
03:02tourism.
03:03So if we can have that same type of size of Muslim tourism, we're very excited by the
03:07possibilities for our economy.
03:09Thirty percent of the economy of Jerusalem is based on foreign tourism.
03:13And I'm looking forward to opening a new chapter with a new country and with all the
03:18population in the country to come to our city.
03:21And I hope that we can live up to the same hospitality standards that you have here.
03:26I look forward to that.
03:27The other thing that I'm doing for Jerusalem that I think that the UAE could be pivotal
03:33is developing the infrastructure of East Jerusalem.
03:36So when I'm talking about creating a huge high-tech park facility and bringing in big
03:41high-tech companies and hiring Arab engineers, that's what I want.
03:45I want East Jerusalem to become the R&D back office for the Middle East, because we have
03:51young Arab-speaking men and women engineers who I believe can provide amazing services
03:59because they've been raised in the atmosphere of innovation of Israel.
04:01Whatever the Emiratis are looking for in Israel, I believe we can provide it in Jerusalem,
04:06and I believe we can provide it in Jerusalem in Arabic when is needed.
04:10We also have 70 languages in Jerusalem.
04:12We have immigrants from 80 different countries around the world.
04:14So we're not dissimilar from Dubai in the sense that we're very multicultural, like
04:18you said earlier, very diverse.
04:20If I can bring a UAE company to invest in helping us build a Silicon Valley in East
04:27Jerusalem, that's a tangible benefit.
04:29If I can bring five technology company or big companies, UAE companies, that want technology
04:36hubs in Israel and they set up shop in East Jerusalem because I can give them special
04:41corporate tax rate benefits and employ 3,000 young Arabs, that's a tangible benefit.
04:48This is what I'm talking about.
04:49If I can give employment to 20 tourism tour operators, Arab.
04:57When I bring the delegation here to operate, it'll be Jews and Arabs.
04:59If I can give them more work because they understand the complexity of Haram al-Sharif
05:06and take them around.
05:07If I can give 50 Arab tour guides from East Jerusalem work for the next five years, that's
05:13a tangible benefit.