Jerusalem: Armenian Christians fight controversial land deal

 

This year, the holidays were overshadowed by the war in Gaza and the ongoing threat to the community's existence from a deeply controversial real estate deal.

Many spent the day in unconventional fashion, sitting in a tent in their church car park, which is part of a larger plot under threat in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City walls.

“This illegal, treacherous land deal has really brought us all together,” says Setrag Baliyan, a ceramics expert turned activist.

Armenians trace their presence in the holy city back to the 4th century. Many of the 2,000-strong community live inside the large, stone-paved complex of St. James's Convent.

In the past, they have often become divided over political differences and family feuds and there have been disagreements between Jerusalem Armenians and their church leaders who act as employers and landlords for many.

Yet, for two months, local Armenians and priests have been living here in a large, improvised tent around the clock, to try to block further development. They eat here and work shifts as guards behind makeshift barricades decorated with Armenian flags.

“This deal put everything at risk,” Setrag says. “Whoever wants to take away our rights and endanger our presence here and our lives, we will stand up against them and defend our rights to the end.”

Last April, facts began to emerge regarding a secretly signed 2021 contract between the Armenian Patriarchate and a Jewish Australian-Israeli developer. It granted a 98-year lease to the newly formed firm Zana Gardens to build and operate a luxury hotel in the area called Cowes Gardens.

The deal included a plot of 11,500 square meters adjacent to the ramparts of the south-western corner of the old city, with an option to take an even larger area.

It consists of car parks, some church buildings and the homes of five Armenian families, making up about 25% of the Armenian Quarter.

Located on Mount Zion, it has huge religious significance and is incredibly valuable real estate, but the developer only had to pay an annual fee of $300,000 (£237,000).

"For that amount you can barely rent a few falafel shops in the old city," commented an Armenian using the car park, who asked that his name not be used.

Amid fierce protests by locals and the decision by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to withdraw recognition of the patriarchate over its role in the deal, pressure increased on the church to cancel the contract.

Meanwhile, an international team of Armenian lawyers arrived to investigate and advise.

The patriarch claimed that he had been betrayed by a trusted priest who was later removed. They finally formally announced their decision to cancel the deal in October.

At that time, tensions between the Armenians and representatives of the developer – whose workers had forcibly taken over the car park – began to escalate into direct confrontation.

When Israeli bulldozers arrived at the disputed site to try to begin demolition, Armenians rushed to stop it. The following month, claims of intimidation were made as the developer arrived accompanied by several armed men.

Further attempts at infiltration were made after the protest tent was set up. The most violent incident was last month when masked men came to a car park and beat people with sticks and used tear gas. One priest, Father Diran Hagopian, broadcast the events on Facebook Live.

"They were shouting, 'You must get off this land'," he later told the BBC. "One of their leaders was shouting: 'You can break their legs, you can even kill them, but they must go.'"

The apparent involvement of known Jewish settlers in the attacks, along with other evidence, has heightened long-standing suspicions that a powerful settler organization is involved in the attempted land takeover.

Ever since Israel captured the Old City and its holy sites from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, Jewish investors in Israel and abroad have sought to buy the property to try to consolidate Israeli control over occupied East Jerusalem. Is of.

Palestinians want this part of the city as the capital of their expected future state. Jewish Israelis view the entire city as their eternal, undivided capital.

Researchers at Ir Amim, an Israeli non-profit organization that focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supports Jerusalem's diversity, are concerned about developments in the Armenian Quarter.

“It's close to sensitive sites,” says Aviv Tatarkasi. “Creating a settlement in this area is part of the very far-reaching objectives of the settler organizations who basically want to completely Jewish the Old City, their “Eyes on the Temple Mount or Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

Under international law, settlements built in the occupied territories are considered illegal, although Israel disagrees.

The BBC contacted the developer of Zana Gardens several times but did not receive any response.

The now-deposed American priest who coordinated the deal, Beret Yeretsian, before moving to Southern California, was accosted by a crowd of angry young Armenians when he walked out of the St. James Convent with the assistance of Israeli police last year." They surrounded him shouting “traitor”.

He has since denied to journalists that the developer has any political or ideological agenda, calling such allegations "propaganda" based on his Jewish identity.

The Armenian Church has now begun proceedings through Israeli courts to challenge the validity of the Cowes Gardens contract.

When locals gathered around a brightly lit Christmas tree in their makeshift tents last week, they stood firm but knew their legal battle could easily take years.

It remains to be seen whether infiltration can be stopped in the meantime or not.