As Israel’s battle on Gaza rages and Israeli assaults on folks within the occupied West Financial institution proceed, Armenian residents of the Outdated Metropolis of Jerusalem are combating a distinct battle – quieter, they are saying, however no much less existential.
One of many oldest communities in Jerusalem, the Armenians have lived within the Outdated Metropolis for greater than 1,500 years, centred across the Armenian convent.
Now, the small Christian neighborhood has begun to fracture beneath strain from forces they are saying threaten them and the multifaith character of the Outdated Metropolis – from Jewish settlers who jeer at clergymen on their technique to prayer to a land deal threatening to show 1 / 4 of their land right into a luxurious resort.
Chasms have emerged between the Armenian Patriarchate and the primarily secular neighborhood, whose members fear the church will not be geared up to guard their dwindling inhabitants and embattled convent.
Within the Armenian Quarter is Save the Arq’s headquarters, a construction with strengthened plywood partitions hung with historic maps inhabited by Armenians who’re there to protest what they see as an unlawful land seize by an actual property developer.
The land beneath menace is the place the neighborhood holds occasions and likewise contains components of the patriarchate itself.
After years of the patriarchate refusing to promote any of its land, Armenian priest Baret Yeretsian secretly “leased” the lot in 2021 for as much as 98 years to Xana Capital, an organization registered simply earlier than the settlement was signed.
Xana turned greater than half the shares to a neighborhood businessman, George Warwar, who has been concerned in varied prison offences.
Group members have been outraged.
The priest fled the nation and the patriarchate cancelled the deal in October, however Xana objected and the contract is now in mediation.
Xana has despatched armed males to the lot, the activists say, attacking folks, together with clergy, with pepper spray and batons.
The activists say Warwar has the backing of a outstanding settler organisation in search of to develop the Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Outdated Metropolis.
The organisation, Ateret Cohanim, is behind a number of controversial land acquisitions within the Outdated Metropolis, and its leaders have been photographed with Warwar and Xana Capital proprietor Danny Rothman, also called Danny Rubinstein, in December 2023. Ateret Cohanim denied any connection to the land deal.
Activists filed swimsuit in opposition to the patriarchate in February, in search of to have the deal declared void and the land to belong to the neighborhood in perpetuity.
The patriarchate refused, saying it owns the land.
Armenians started arriving within the Outdated Metropolis as early because the fourth century with a big wave arriving within the early twentieth century, fleeing the Ottoman Empire. They’ve the identical standing as Palestinians in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem – residents however not residents, successfully stateless.
As we speak, the newcomers are primarily boys who arrive from Armenia to reside and research within the convent though many drop out. Clergy say that’s partially as a result of assaults in opposition to Christians have elevated, leaving the Armenians – whose convent is closest to the Jewish Quarter and is alongside a well-liked path to the Western Wall – weak.
Father Aghan Gogchyan, the patriarchate’s chancellor, mentioned he’s commonly attacked by teams of Jewish nationalists.
The Rossing Middle, which tracks anti-Christian assaults within the Holy Land, documented about 20 assaults on Armenian folks and property and church properties in 2023, many involving ultranationalist Jewish settlers spitting at Armenian clergy or graffiti studying “Demise to Christians” scrawled on the quarter’s partitions.
