Goodbye Paris, Shalom Tel Aviv

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The new Jerusalem streetcar line is modern, fast, and frequent. One every four minutes and at rush hour, every two minutes on average. It took years of work and caused huge traffic jams that exasperated the shopkeepers and neighbors of Yafo Street, but today all those annoyances are no more than a bad memory. It’s been up and running since September 2011. Finally. And it’s changed the landscape. People have even forgotten how Jerusalem was before the tram. Or without a tram.

Only, nobody’s very relaxed on the cars. It’s too bad—all that hatred between Jews and Arabs, that distrust and paranoia. Yet terrorist attacks are extremely rare on the line. Two or three cars rammed at the Beit Hanina and Shuafat stops on the northern section, but never stabbings inside like every day in town and in the Occupied Territories for the last few years. No one knows why, exactly. Maybe down deep, the Jews and Arabs of Jerusalem think of the streetcar as their common possession and it’s better to preserve it. Intifadas come and go, the streetcar remains…

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