The Israeli Supreme Court issued a decision rejecting the Patriarchate’s latest attempts to annul the ruling issued against it in July 2017, through which the radical Israeli organization, Ateret Cohanim, succeeded in expropriating the properties of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem at Jaffa Gate (Bab Al-Khalil) in Jerusalem, and this decision comes despite the legal battle waged by the Patriarchate for the past seventeen years.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem considered the court’s decision as unfair and not following any legal or logical basis, as the radical organization and its backers and supporters have followed crooked and illegal methods to acquire Christian real estate in one of the most important sites of Arab Islamic and Christian presence in Jerusalem.
Over the past years, the Patriarchate launched a legal, media, and diplomatic campaign in which it incurred very high costs, in the judicial and diplomatic field, in order to pressure the Israeli authorities to prevent radical organizations from seizing these properties, but these attempts did not succeed under the pressure of these radical organizations and their agents who support them in the decision-making circles.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem affirmed that it will continue to support the Palestinian tenants in their steadfastness in these Christian properties and that it is unwavering in its battle to curb the racist policy and the agenda of the extremist right-wing in Israel, aimed at eroding the multiple identities of the city of Jerusalem and imposing a new reality within it.
Source: Patriarchate of Jerusalem
