Yes, Mr. Barkat acknowledged, the plan also promotes the City of David.

“This is the Zionist element of the project,” he said. “The City of David is the ultimate proof of our ownership of this land.” To go from there to the Western Wall is to follow “the path where Jewish pilgrims came to worship God in the ancient city,” the former mayor pointed out, when “there were no Christians or Muslims.”

He predicts the gondolas and cable car stations will be less of an intrusion on the skyline than critics fear. “It’s a matter of taste and perception,” he says.

The architect for the stations, Mendy Rosenfeld, agrees. He has devised the glass designs to appear as immaterial as possible. “There is no way you can hide a cable car system,” he admitted.

But Mr. Rosenfeld cites I.M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre, a modernist glass interloper in the historic courtyard of France’s former royal palace. Skeptics attacked the pyramid before it opened.

“Now everyone loves it,” Mr. Rosenfeld said.