Jerusalem’s Old City gets $57 million cable cars and pylons to promote tourism.

The ramparts of ochre stone stand out against the sky, framed by hilltop buildings and olive trees — but the view of Jerusalem’s Old City could soon include cable cars and pylons. But archaeologists, architects and city planners say the scheme, if completed, will be a blight on Jerusalem’s ancient heritage. The Western Wall is directly adjacent to the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, but also located on the Temple Mount, the most sacred place in Judaism. The cable car is to start at the preserved, but no longer functioning, Ottoman-era railway station in west Jerusalem, where a two-story glass terminal will host 3,000 passengers per hour. A first stop will be on Mount Zion, a hill where Christians believe Jesus and his disciples met for the Last Supper and also revered by Jews as the burial place of biblical King David. From there, the cable cars will pass above the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, a frequent flashpoint between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers. In Silwan, the cable cars will pass over about 60 homes, at some points just 14 meters above the rooftops, said Fakhri Abu Diab, director of the local residents’ association.Israeli tour guide Michel Seban enthuses about the cable car, which he says will ease access to the densely packed Old City with its narrow cobbled lanes. In a petition, they wrote that “a cable car is not appropriate for ancient cities with a skyline preserved for hundreds or thousands of years.” The Palestinian Authority has denounced the project as another attempt to increase Israeli presence in east Jerusalem.