Church in Jerusalem scrambles to regain trust of community after deal with settler group
The Imperial Hotel in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, 29 November 2019
Ahmad Melham reports in Al-Monitor:
The Israeli Jerusalem District Court rejected June 24 the appeal submitted by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate on June 23 to block the transfer of church property to an Israeli settlement association. The court had earlier issued a ruling asserting the validity of a renewable deal whereby the settlement association Ateret Cohanim rented properties from the Orthodox Church in Bab al-Khalil in Jerusalem for a period of 99 years.
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate spokesman Father Issa Musleh told Al-Monitor the Patriarchate will resort to the Israeli High Court of Justice in the coming period, as it has documents proving the existence of corruption in the deal.
He said the legal team is still taking care of the needed measures and has yet to determine the date it will resort to court. The Patriarchate has all the required documents and is waiting for life to return to normal post-coronavirus.
In 2004, the Orthodox Patriarchate signed a deal with shell companies that later transferred the property to Ateret Cohanim, the Maariv newspaper revealed back in 2005. The deal allowed the lease of three church properties to the settler association, namely the Petra and Imperial hotels located on Umar Ibn al-Khattab Plaza at Jaffa Gate, and Muzamiya House in the Bab al-Huta neighborhood north of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
After its disclosure, the deal sparked angry reaction leading to the dismissal of then-Patriarch Irenaeus on May 7, 2005, as he was accused of leasing church property to the Israelis by granting a general power of attorney to the former treasurer of the Patriarchate, Nicholas Papademos, who signed the rental deals. Since then, the Patriarchate has been trying to nullify the deal.
Ateret Cohanim was established at the end of the 1970s and works to populate East Jerusalem with Jewish settlers by evicting Palestinians from their homes and taking over Palestinian property. It has managed over the past years to take over dozens of Palestinian properties in the various neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.