Jerusalem Municipality: Routing Light Rail Through Hostile Arab Villages “Not Our Smartest Move”

The Jerusalem light rail in all its glory. (Source: Wikimedia)

In a press conference today, Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat acknowledged that routing the Jerusalem light rail through three hostile Arab towns was “not the world’s most intelligent decision.” “We could have done better,” acknowledged Barkat. “Like, looked at a map.”

The current spat of rioting that has occurred in the hostile Arab villages of Shuafat and Beit Hanina has led to the total destruction of the train stops in those neighborhoods, with damages totaling several million Shekel. “That’s OK,” reassured Barkat. “We were wondering what to do with all that extra municipal cash, what with Jerusalem having the highest tax bracket in the country and all. Now we finally found a purpose for it.”

“Seriously, what were we thinking?” asks Barkat rhetorically, face-palming himself and uploading a selfie to Instagram. “This is a serious case of #WTF.”

In his defense, the light rail was actually conceived and set in motion well before Barkat rose to power. Construction of the light rail took approximately 104 and years, and was hampered by the fact that electricity hadn’t made its way to Israel yet.

Art professor Anat Ben-Shalom-Zona, of the Bezalael Academy of Art and Design, has a different view on the matter. “This twisted pile of metal that is the former train station is actually a testament to the will and resolve of the Palestinian people,” she explains, referring to Israeli Arabs by an erroneous term. “It saddens me to no end. And to think, we could have prevented all this by letting them kill us instead of allowing all that anger build up,” she laments.

“I just want to remind everyone how safe Jerusalem is”, said Barkat, ducking for cover as rioting youths pelted rocks in his general direction. “You have a much greater chance of getting stabbed in New York than getting hit in the head with a rock in Jerusalem” he added, getting hit in the head with a rock.

The current unrest has cut off the Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev from the rest of the city, forcing residents to take buses to and from their neighborhood; a solution that is clearly more primitive because otherwise the light rail would not have been built in the first place.

To help clarify the confusion, CityPass has broadcasted misleading ticker-tape messages in the remaining non-burnt-out stations, and has hired teenagers to sit in the stops and wear official CityPass T-shirts while playing on their phones.

The Jerusalem municipality wishes to reassure the public that routine will be restored just as quickly as it was when the train was first built.