Israeli Police Use Tear Gas on Greek Orthodox Protest

Israeli police sprayed tear gas on the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem and his followers Thursday as he led them to protest the takeover by a Jewish nationalist group of a building that the church claims as its own.

The incident took place as thousands of religious pilgrims roamed the Old City: Jews to the Western Wall for Passover, Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Holy Week and Easter and Muslims to the Dome of the Rock for Ramadan, a month of fasting.

Piety and repression merged in chaos: The aged Greek patriarch, Diodorus I, was overcome by the gas and was carried off by gasping, black-robed priests; a Roman Catholic procession for Maundy Thursday retreated in disarray inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; Greek Orthodox offices were fogged by gas when police shot a canister through a window, and German pilgrims struggled to follow their flag-waving guide while fighting back tears.

At the bottom of the conflict are Arab-Israeli and Jewish-Christian rivalries that belie Jerusalem’s image as a city of peace.

The Old City had been tense for a day after 150 members of the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva arrived in the traditional Christian Quarter. That yeshiva, or seminary, is dedicated to expanding Jewish presence in neighborhoods inhabited mostly by Arabs.

The yeshiva members and their families, under police escort, took up residence Wednesday in an old building known as the Hospice of St. John, just around the corner from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They tacked a Star of David drawn on cardboard over the entrance, covering up a metallic emblem of intertwined Greek letters that signify Guardians of the Tomb, an Orthodox brotherhood.

When the Greek patriarch, the equivalent of an archbishop, arrived Thursday, one of a score of priests in tow ripped down the Star of David. A pair of border police officers at the door responded by spraying the crowd with tear gas from a canister and by beating and arresting at least one of the priests.

The patriarch later told journalists that the police pushed him to the ground and broke an icon he was wearing. Witnesses said that an aide to Diodorus was clubbed by police. He was treated at a church clinic.

“I feel indignation and condemnation, and I denounce all these acts. This week is the most sacred week for Christians, and the Jews have desecrated our holy festivals,” the patriarch said.

Yeshiva members said they bought the building from an Armenian resident of Jerusalem who said he owned it. The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported that the price was $5 million. The seller could not be reached for comment.

Later Thursday, an Israeli court ruled that the building belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church. However, the Jewish settlers obtained an injunction from a higher court that allowed them to remain for several more days.

Greek church officials argued that the seller was a tenant that they were trying to evict and that the largely abandoned building, an early 20th-Century pilgrim hotel, belongs to them.

Yeshiva members said they intend to re-establish Jewish life in an area where Jewish merchants owned shops before being frightened off by Arab riots in the 1920s. In addition, yeshiva spokesperson Shifra Blass told reporters, the families moved into the building to advance “the avowed government policy of Jewish settlement throughout the city.”

Similar groups have moved into the Muslim Quarter, but this was the first such action in the Christian neighborhood.

Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek criticized the yeshiva for moving in. Regardless of the legality, he said, the timing of the move “lacked wisdom and sensitivity.”

“They chose the eve of one of the most important Christian holidays,” Kollek said. “If a non-Jewish group were to move into a Jewish neighborhood on Passover eve, singing and dancing, wouldn’t the inhabitants be just as angry?”

Almost 50,000 Muslims live in the Old City, along with 7,000 Christians and 4,000 Jews. The Old City, encased within a picturesque 400-year-old wall, is divided into distinctive neighborhoods housing followers of the three faiths.

The conflict is being played out against the backdrop of Israeli-Palestinian tensions in the Old City. As tear gas penetrated the winding alleys, Arab youths shouted Palestinian slogans and hurled rocks at converging border and municipal police.

Earlier this week, a member of a yeshiva set up in the Muslim Quarter was stabbed in the back while pushing a baby stroller in the Old City. He survived, and the baby was unhurt.

Faisal Husseini, a leading Palestinian nationalist and a contact for the Palestine Liberation Organization, was present at the Greek Orthodox demonstration. Later, Ariel Sharon, a hawkish member of the ruling Likud Party, visited the site.

The territorial jostling in the Old City has sensitive diplomatic dimensions. Many foreign countries, including the United States, do not recognize Israel’s annexation of the eastern half of Jerusalem, which includes the Old City. Israel occupied the entire city during the 1967 Middle East War.

Last month, President Bush spoke out against continued Israeli settlement of East Jerusalem, which has a large Arab population. Greece’s newly elected conservative government has promised to open full diplomatic relations with Israel, and a consular official expressed astonishment at Thursday’s incident.

Mayor Kollek commented: “This is not a local issue. It has international repercussions.”

Israel’s government, which has pledged itself to protect all faiths from interference by one another, was evidently sensitive about the incident. Government radio broadcast a sanitized version of events, saying that youths waved Palestinian flags and that the patriarch was “slightly affected” by tear gas. There were no Palestinian flags.

Several religious dignitaries paid visits to Diodorus in the Greek Orthodox headquarters and protested the tear gassing.

Sheik Mohammed Jamal, a high Muslim official and caretaker of the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s three most holy shrines, charged the Jewish group with provocation.

“This land is recognized as Christian internationally. The occupation is a provocation,” he said.

CITY OF ANCIENT ENCLAVES

The walled Old City of Jerusalem, a maze of narrow alleys and centuries-old stone structures, has been an inhabited site for more than 3,000 years. It is divided into four residential-commercial quarters: Jewish, Christian (mostly Arab), Muslim and Armenian. Each quarter is centered in coveted religious sites. There are about 50,000 Muslims, 7,000 Christians and 4,000 Jews there. For the most part, they live together peaceably inside walls that were last rebuilt by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th Century. In recent years, however, some nationalist Jews, including hawkish Likud Party member Ariel Sharon, have bought up what they claim are formerly Jewish properties in the other quarters, exacerbating inter-communal tensions. Israel claims as its capital the entirety of Jerusalem, including the Old City, which it captured in the 1967 Middle East War. However, the United States and most other nations do not acknowledge it as the capital.