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22-01-2024
WASHINGTON/ JERUSALEM: While Christmas may be a distant memory for many, the Armenians of Jerusalem only just held their annual celebration on 19 January.
This year, the holiday was overshadowed by the war in Gaza and the ongoing threat to the survival of the community from a deeply controversial real estate deal.
Many spent the day in an unconventional fashion, joining a sit-in at a tent in their church car park, which is part of a large plot at risk in the Armenian Quarter of the walled Old City.
“This illegal, treacherous land deal actually brought us all together,” says Setrag Balian, a ceramicist turned activist.
Armenians date their presence in the holy city back to the 4th Century. Many of the 2,000-strong community live inside the large, cobble-stoned compound of St James Convent.
In the past, they have often been divided by political differences and family fights and there have been rifts between Jerusalemite Armenians and their Church leaders who act as employers and landlords for many.
Yet for two months, local Armenians and priests have all been staying in a large, improvised tent here, around-the-clock, to try to block the development going ahead. They eat here and work shifts as guards behind a makeshift barricade decorated with Armenian flags.
Together, they say, they have seen off attacks by contractors with bulldozers, armed settlers and masked thugs.
“Everything was put in danger with this deal,” Setrag says. “Whoever wants to take away our rights and endanger our presence and our lives here, we will stand up against them and defend our rights till the end.”
Last April, facts began to emerge about a 2021 contract secretly signed between the Armenian Patriarch and a Jewish Australian-Israeli developer. It gave a newly-created firm, Xana Gardens, a 98-year lease to build and operate a luxury hotel in an area known as the Cow’s Garden.
The deal covered a plot of 11,500 sq., m, abutting the ramparts of the south-western corner of the Old City, with an option to take over an even bigger area.
It includes the car park, some church buildings and the homes of five Armenian families, accounting for about 25% of the Armenian Quarter.
Located on Mount Zion, it has huge religious significance and is incredibly valuable real estate but an annual fee of just $300,000 (£237,000) was to be paid by the developer. (Int’l News Desk)
