A general view shows the plaza of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, amid the coronavirus pandemic, May 6, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.
Al Monitor reported last month:
The current religious leader of the Armenians [in Jerusalem] and his real estate director are now embroiled in a row with the Palestinian leadership for leasing hitherto unused sensitive land next to the Jewish Quarter initially to the Israeli municipality for a parking lot.
The 10-year lease that required the Israelis to spend $2 million to clear rubble in order to prepare the parking lot is now said to have become a 99-year lease to Jewish Australian businessman Danny Rubenstein, to convert it into a luxurious hotel that the patriarchate has admitted to and said it “will bring in a stream of hundreds of thousands of dollars that will provide financial stability for the cash-strapped church.” [emphasis added]
The land is being leased to a Jew. And Palestinians are very upset about this.
Al Quds newspaper reports:
The Secretary-General of the National People’s Congress of Jerusalem, Major General Bilal Al-Natsheh, warned of the danger of the Armenian Patriarchate renting a plot of land belonging to it to a Jewish investor in the Armenian neighborhood of East Jerusalem to build a hotel on it. Al-Natsheh said in a statement issued today, Monday, that this step serves the Israeli policy of Judaization of the Holy City in general and the Old City in particular.
The Secretary-General of the National People’s Congress of Jerusalem added that this measure is totally rejected, and the Patriarchate must reconsider and retract its decision.
If the land would be leased to a Muslim, no one would care. If it would be leased to Christians, no one would care. But when it is leased to a Jew — not an Israeli, but a Jew — the furor proves yet again that anti-Zionism is merely a thin camouflage for old fashioned Jew-hatred.
It was never about Israel or Israelis. It was always about Jews.
