This week, as around every Jerusalem Day, Israeli leaders swore in the city’s name that it would never again be divided, and promised a rose-colored future for the capital and its inhabitants.

At the opening ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the city’s reunification, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “here we stand in gratification and glory, in Jerusalem — our pride and joy, our people’s majesty, our eternal and united capital forever and ever.” Mayor Nir Barkat spoke, as usual, about the city’s “great momentum,” which can be seen “in the enormous investment in infrastructure, the new train lines and the cable network that will make ancient Jerusalem accessible,” he said.

It was left to President Reuven Rivlin, who in contrast to Netanyahu and Barkat would like to see a united and equitable Jerusalem as part of his one-state vision, to admit that “Between the western part of the city and its east there is still an abyss of unbearable differences in poverty rates, an abyss of huge gaps in infrastructure, an abyss of prolonged neglect.”

The time for pompous statements about unified Jerusalem — or, alternately, for breast-beating and penance — has passed. Israeli governments and Jerusalem city councils through the generations have had enough time to correct the injustice, to stop the neglect, to eradicate poverty and to launch large projects that would genuinely unite the city. Israel and Jerusalem have had a long time to equalize the infrastructure and resources in all the city’s neighborhoods and for all its residents, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

Fifty years is enough time to judge Israel on its success in Jerusalem, and the picture is one of striking failure. It is the only Western capital in which 40 percent of residents are not citizens of the country. In East Jerusalem, 80 percent of the population is below the poverty line and 80 percent of the homes are built illegally. More than 90 percent of East Jerusalem high-school students take the Palestinian matriculation exams, not the Israeli bagrut. Jerusalem has two public transportation systems, two electric companies, two types of civil status and two separate sets of laws. It’s also the only world capital that is recognized by almost no other country or international organization, and that does not have a single embassy within its borders. Even U.S. President Donald Trump refused to redeem Jerusalem from this nonrecognition.

On Wednesday, as on every Jerusalem Day, the flag parade of youngsters from the religious-Zionist community, a violent, racist, ultranationalist affair, marched through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter. This year the marchers were even allowed to circumnavigate the Old City, to the Dung Gate, in a route that traversed the main streets of East Jerusalem. This, to prove to everyone just who controls the city. But demonstrations of power and control cannot erase the fact that Jerusalem is a divided city, and that the time has come to formulate a political solution that will reflect the reality in Jerusalem, and not the clichés and slogans that envelop it.