Although he lives nearby, Setrag Balian spent the night in a tent. He and other young Armenian activists take turns so that someone can raise the alarm when the bulldozers return to their neighborhood in Jerusalem's historic walled citadel, as happened unexpectedly last November when the war in Gaza drew attention. Dozens of people, some armed and with dogs, showed up at dawn to begin filling the site, in keeping with a shadowy real estate operation that is turning a normally quiet neighborhood that has been home to the oldest Armenian community for 1,500 years declared a state of war. in the diaspora.
The activists stopped him and – in an unprecedented display in an area best known for its cathedral and ceramists – installed fences, barbed wire and Armenian flags in the middle of the large parking lot that the patriarch and a monk have rented for 98 years had Australian businessman. -Israeli is building a luxury hotel. Anywhere else on the planet it would have been an easy sale, but in the Old City of Jerusalem everyone looks at each other suspiciously because ultra-nationalist Jewish organizations have been acquiring property through front men for years, in a hidden struggle to populate it little by little. “It is the biggest existential problem that our community has experienced here. We are neither stupid nor were we born yesterday. It’s enough to connect the dots,” says Balian.
Tent that Armenian activists set up in their neighborhood in Jerusalem last November. Alvaro Garcia
The situation has not stopped deteriorating since April last year, when the municipality learned of the contents of the contract signed in 2021. 11,500 square meters are affected: a large outdoor parking lot (on the site known as the “Garden of Cows”) and some buildings belonging to the Patriarchate and five private houses. It accounts for 25% of the part of the neighborhood under Armenian control, as it also houses a large police station or the Tower of David Museum in Israeli hands. The price: two million dollars (1.85 million euros), well below such a sought-after location. An apartment with a view in the Jewish Quarter annex of the Old City can cost up to six million shekels (1.5 million euros). The Armenian Quarter, whose population has declined (today about 1,500), houses the only way to reach the Western Wall by car through the citadel, as well as the gate allowing access to Mount Zion.
When this found out, a large part of the Armenian neighborhood rose up against Patriarch Nourhan Manougian. He rarely left the monastery and had to listen to demonstrations every Friday during which he was called a “traitor” and displayed a scarf to mark a “red line.” It was the culmination of the rift that had formed between young people and the patriarchy, which manages the civil and religious affairs of the Armenian community. Manougian, 75, one of the deal's signatories, blamed and expelled Baret Yeretsian, the cleric who coordinated the deal and who had to be protected from an angry mob by Israeli police before fleeing to California.
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“The community’s reaction had moral but also practical reasons. We cannot add a single room here while five-story buildings are being built in the Jewish Quarter. Parking is a huge problem and there are people who come to school from Bethlehem,” explains George Hintlian, historian of the Armenian presence in Jerusalem, one of its main figures and former number two in the Patriarchate, in the community center. “There was also an element of surprise and anger when we found out how much land was included in the contract. The patriarchy was initially unaware of this,” he adds.
Like everything in the Holy Land, the matter soon took on a political dimension. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan withdrew Manougian's recognition as patriarch, preventing him from conducting transactions or signing treaties in either territory.
At the end of October, the patriarch announced to the other party, the company Xana Gardens, that he was terminating the contract on the grounds that this had come about with lies. The legality of the repeal is now before the courts, but the decision changed the situation: the young activists bit the bullet and accepted the patriarch in the protests, while the promoters lost patience and sent in the bulldozers, which tore down a small wall and… Part of elevated ground. “They thought that since all the media was busy with Gaza, they could act like hooligans and physically take control of the place,” says Balian, who wears a patch on his sweatshirt with the flag of Artsakh, the self-proclaimed republic in Berg -Karabakh in 1991. and officially dissolved on January 1 after Azerbaijan's military victory and the flight of virtually the entire Armenian population.
Fences with barbed wire that Armenian activists installed in the parking lot of their neighborhood in Jerusalem last November.Álvaro García
In an unusual show of unity and the fact that the controversy goes beyond the facts, the leaders of all churches in the Holy Land issued a joint statement expressing their “grave concern” about the events and the risk that they “weaken and endanger the danger.” the Christian presence” in the region.
On January 23rd the tension rose a few degrees. At least a dozen men (several masked or wearing hoods and sunglasses) showed up at the scene and one began cutting the fence with an electric saw. There was a stone-beating that ended with several arrests.
In the same parking lot, the undersigned also appeared as a buyer: Canadian-Israeli Danny Rothman, who sometimes uses the surname Rubinstein, sometimes both. He founded the company
Protest in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem against the real estate operation, in September 2023. Antonio Pita
Rothman transferred half the shares to George Warwar, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who was recently arrested for attacking an Armenian activist in front of police. Warwar – who declined to comment to this newspaper and expressed his hope that “the situation will soon calm down” – was recently seen in a hotel in the city meeting, among others, Matti Dan, the founder of the Ateret movement Cohanim, photographed extremist who advocates the Judaization of all of Jerusalem. In 2005, the group bought three buildings in the Old City's Christian quarter from the Orthodox Patriarchate, well below market price and through a shell company in a tax haven. The then Patriarch Irenaeus I was deposed shortly afterwards after being accused of corruption. Israel's Supreme Court in 2022 ended a nearly two-decade legal battle by upholding the validity of the controversial purchase.
Ateret Cohanim denies being involved in the operation in the Armenian quarter. However, Danny Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and activist specializing in the city's geopolitics and founder of the NGO Land Jerusalem, has little doubt that “the initiative is supported by extreme settler organizations in East Jerusalem.” He places it within the policies of recent years aimed at “surrounding the Old City with Jewish settlements” in order to change its character and “marginalize the rest” of identities. “I can't confirm it, but if we base it on recent history and some circumstantial evidence, some settlers are acting in collusion with the Israeli government,” he says by phone.
As a background, there are also outstanding invoices. The Armenians, whom some Palestinians accuse of appeasing the Israeli authorities, are not forgetting the powerful weapons – mainly drones – and technological support that Israel provided to Azerbaijan both in the clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and in its ultimate victory last year September granted a surrender of the Armenian enclave in just 24 hours. In recent weeks, numerous Azerbaijani military flights have been registered between Israel and a base near Nagorno-Karabakh. “Instead of helping Azerbaijan, Israel participated almost directly. And Artsakh is a very painful issue for us,” says Hintlian.
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