Barkat has a vision of setting up a councilof metropolitan Jerusalem that will involve the heads of the Jewish communities around the city in its overall development plans.
Likewise, Netanyahu's willingness to outwardly support both Obama's effort to appease Iran and his efforts to pass anti-Iran sanctions in the Security Council gained Obama a year and a half of quiet from Jerusalem.
The AUT, holding its annual council in Eastbourne, is being called upon to boycott of the Hebrew University ofJerusalem unless it "calls for a halt to all attempts to confiscate land from Palestinian families, and reaches an acceptable settlement" with them.
What most concerns Netanyahu these days is that the US will fail to block a Palestinian bid to have the Security Council recognize a Palestinian state in all of Judea and Samaria and in large swathes ofJerusalem even if the Palestinians refuse to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
For example, the Administration strongly opposed last month at the Human Rights Council the creation of a fact-finding mission regarding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.