JERUSALEM, March 20: Up to 400 Palestinian Christians demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday to protest the sale by the Greek Orthodox Church of two properties in the Old City to foreign Jewish investors. The protestors marched from the Holy Sepulchre Church to the Greek Orthodox patriarchy holding aloft Arabic and Greek placards proclaiming: “Keep the Church for the Orthodox Arabs,” and “Yes to the Arabization of the Church”.

Hundreds of people crowded into an alley outside the patriarchy chanting: “We are the Arab Orthodox Church” and “This is our land”. “He (the patriarch) is Judas because he is selling the land of the Christians to the Jews,” said Tareq Kreitem, a 30-year-old engineer, denouncing the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem.

“This will have a very bad impact on Muslim-Christian relations in Jerusalem because the Muslims will accuse us of selling land to the Jews,” said Hani Queri, 45, an Orthodox Christian who works in import and distribution. Reports of the highly controversial sale have revived a long-running dispute between the Palestinian and Greek Orthodox churches.

“We’re not demonstrating because we’re Christians but because we’re Palestinians. It is a political issue. He is selling our land to the enemy,” said Elle Tarazi, 69.

On Friday, Israel’s Maariv newspaper reported that foreign Jewish investors had paid millions of dollars to buy two large properties at Jaffa Gate, the main entrance to the Old City, in a secret deal with the Greek Orthodox Church.

The properties currently house two hotels managed by two well-known Palestinian families and a row of shops selling tourist trinkets.

Purchasing property in the Old City — in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem — is fraught with political tensions as Jewish groups often try to obtain properties in Palestinian areas in a major settlement drive.

A source close to the Greek Orthodox patriarchy said on Friday that the church was unaware of the land sale and that “an internal investigation” was underway.

The source said the patriarch, Irineos I, would never have agreed to such a transaction and that suspicions were growing that it had been carried out by a Greek Orthodox lawyer who had acted outside the bounds of his authority and then fled the country to avoid detection. —AFP