Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting today:
"Good morning and welcome to the Mayor of Jerusalem. Today we are hosting you and your deputy mayors. Today, we will devote part of the Cabinet meeting to strengthening Jerusalem. During the ceremonies marking the unification of the city, I underscored the importance that we ascribe to strengthening the heritage of Jerusalem in the history of Israel, and to preserving and developing the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and the Old City. These things are important to us in order to ensure that we are preserving our past. But this meeting will be mainly directed to assuring the future of Jerusalem as an open and prosperous city that embraces its future. This we must do by developing transportation, employment, housing, culture and higher education. All these things require Government investments and inter-ministerial coordination. Therefore, today we will establish a ministerial committee, to be chaired by me, and a director-generals committee to be chaired by Prime Minister's Office Director-General Eyal Gabai. We will enact a series of plans that we will advance in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality and with you, Mr. Mayor. I would like to give one example of something that we will do. We would like to create centers of culture for the entire population. When I was a boy, not far from my residence in the Talbiyeh neighborhood, there was a certain closed compound that was used a hospital for people with Hansen's disease. As children, we did not really go near it. Dan Meridor certainly remembers this closed compound. I went there once when it was already abandoned and I discovered a 19th century architectural gem with an impressive garden and a structure worth preserving, one of the finest I have seen in the country, and not just in the country, but in the world. We will take this compound and rehabilitate it and give it to the Jerusalem Municipality. In coordination with the JNF, we will turn it into a cultural center and a center for the arts, which will create an additional attraction in Jerusalem and its vibrancy. I would like to reach a situation in which the trend of leaving Jerusalem for Tel Aviv is halted and perhaps even reversed, with all due respect to Tel Aviv. We want to preserve Jerusalem's past and ensure its future as a city and mother in Israel. Thank you."
