Jerusalem Armenians in Bitter Fight to Save Their Land amid Focus on Gaza War

The land was sold by the Armenian Patriarch with the involvement of a now-defrocked priest who was responsible for the Patriarchate’s vast property portfolio.

“The whole thing stinks,” Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli anti-settlement activist and lawyer, told The National.

“This patch of land is strategically located. In Camp David, [Prime Minister Ehud Barak] was willing to give Palestinians the Christian and Muslim Quarter, but only half of the Armenian Quarter. Israel wanted its road, one of the only vehicular routes in the Old City,” Seidemann added.

“I’ve said to my friends in the international community, ignore the legalities for now. There are hundreds of members of a community confronting armed people with dogs and weapons. It’s on the brink of an explosion. The last thing we need is an eruption of convulsive violence in Jerusalem. Sort out the legal issues later – make this go away.”

The Armenian community is indeed seething. They fear the deal might spell the end of their presence in the Old City.

Without a car park, the Quarter’s already dwindling numbers would not be able to keep its institutions going, turning the area from a center of Armenian life into a museum, they say.

Garo Ghazarian, a high-profile US-Armenian attorney and part of a group of international lawyers who have banded together to prevent the deal, summed up the stakes at the end of a fact-finding mission in June:

“The Armenian Quarter is of national and international importance for all Armenian people all over the world,” he told a packed courtyard of residents and international journalists, flanked by peers from across the Armenian diaspora.

“It is of the highest historical value and wealth to the Armenian nation. It is an integral part in the identity of the Armenian people in general. It is living proof of the centuries-old history of our people. It is testament to our great civilization in world history.”

On October 26, the Patriarch announced that he had a sent a cancellation letter to the developers, although no one from the community has seen it.

That same day, bulldozers turned up to the site and began knocking down walls, prompting members of the community to keep watch on regular intervals.

Although they were already on alert, Sunday was different. The arrival of anonymous armed men was a significant escalation.

Djernazian beckoned in rage in the direction of one particular man, Danny Rothman, a figure at the heart of the property deal about whom very little is known.

Mr Rothman declined to comment on the reason behind his surprise arrival and the current status of the wider property deal.

Perhaps worst of all, many in the community feel betrayed by their religious leadership. Many believe the Patriarch was incompetent at best for signing away the property. Others believe corruption is the reason.

The breakdown in trust is dangerous for the tiny community.

Armenians in the Holy Land, numbering only a few thousand people, are mostly the descendants of victims of the Armenian Genocide, who scattered themselves throughout the Middle East to escape the Ottoman Empire’s oppression in the early 20th century.

There is also a much older religious community, whose presence for centuries makes the Armenians one of the foremost Christian denominations in Jerusalem.

Now, those two parts of the community, co-religionists in one of Israel’s worst crises, are bitterly divided.

There are, however, signs things might be improving.

Many priests joined the community in the car park on Sunday, not easy given their boss started the saga. A new bishop has just arrived from Armenia to deal with the institution’s property. A number of figures in the community told The National they hold him in high regard.

The Patriarch himself even turned up, according to a press release. “The community stood strong, with 200 members in unity to prevent the takeover and save the Armenian Quarter,” it read.

On Monday, quiet had returned to the car park. Mr Djernazian stood by the rubble kicked up by the bulldozers mere days previously.

“Jerusalem has been targeted for years, but it’s important to note that people are using the war in Gaza to target Armenians when they are most likely to be alone,” he said.

“We have had a presence here since the 4th century, so we will never give up. Losing this land would mean endangering not just the Armenian presence in Jerusalem but the Christian one, too.”