To the Spoiler, Victory

By Kevin Fedarko

The ground was shaking last Tuesday night on Jerusalem's Pierre Koenig Street as scores of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in long black coats and black hats stamped their feet, shouted "Messiah!" and sprayed champagne in the direction of Ehud Olmert, the city's new mayor. Five minutes away, shudders of a different sort reverberated through the campaign headquarters of Teddy Kollek as television announcers declared that a "political earthquake" had ended a remarkable career in public service. It is difficult to imagine Jerusalem without the rotund, irascible Kollek, who presided for nearly three decades over a transformation of the Holy City from a somnolent backwater bisected by barbed wire to a modern cosmopolis filled with parks, promenades and one of the biggest shopping malls in the Middle East. Recently, however, the indefatigable octogenarian, renowned for his ability to tiptoe through the city's political minefields, has been hampered by a threadbare temper and an embarrassing tendency to doze off, Reagan-style, at public events.

Kollek had long been prepared to step down until Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared the race a referendum on his agreement with Yasser Arafat to begin limited Palestinian self-rule, and begged Kollek to run again. It was a mistake not even Kollek's legendary charm could reverse. Olmert wisely let the mayor's 82 years speak for themselves: he kept silent on how a conservative Likud government would run the city. While Kollek tried to deflect the inevitable snooze jokes and sought unsuccessfully to woo Palestinians in East Jerusalem, who have traditionally boycotted elections and felt ignored by the mayor, the Likud candidate promised ultra-Orthodox Jews more power and money, and won handily with 59% of the vote.

One of the conservative party's "young princes" in line for future leadership, Olmert joined 49 other Knesset members in voting against the Israel-P.L.O. accord. His ascension has ignited speculation that his right- wing stance could turn the city into a flashpoint between Arabs and Jews as both grope toward some kind of accommodation. The peace negotiations have already hit their first snag over just how far Israeli troops will withdraw from Jericho and the Gaza Strip while still protecting Jewish settlements.

Within hours of his victory, Olmert exacerbated Palestinian fears by affirming that "every Jew can acquire property anywhere in Jerusalem," an issue Kollek had resolutely tamped down. Anticipating that Jews would use such rhetoric to push for new settlements in Arab neighborhoods, Rabin swiftly retorted that such remarks "do great harm to the delicate fabric of relations." While it is the national government that sets Israeli policy on Jerusalem, the mayor's ability to maintain the delicate peace in this restive city is crucial.

Olmert, an intimate of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, has an ability to put a smooth face on his party's hard-line views, and after the election promised to avoid "unnecessary confrontations." But such assurances pale against his campaign slogans, which pandered to Jewish hysteria over the security implications of Palestinian self-rule. If Kollek were re-elected, warned one Olmert ad, "300,000 Arabs will roam the streets freely trafficking drugs, robbing and raping." Although the mayor-elect apologized, in a city already rent by the tectonic clash of religion and politics, such remarks seem guaranteed to set off dangerous new tremors.

With reporting by Robert Slater/Jerusalem