Politics, Religion Mix in Jerusalem : Israel: Controversy over a building in the Old City that the Greek Orthodox Church says it owns splits along leftist and rightist lines.

The controversy over a Jewish group’s takeover of a Christian Quarter building in Jerusalem’s Old City shifted to the political arena Saturday as Israeli politicians lined up to take sides.

Generally, opinion split along leftist and rightist lines, with leftists attacking the move into the building as a breach of the city’s delicate religious status quo and the right claiming that Jews can live anywhere, even if followers of other faiths can be barred from specifically Jewish neighborhoods.

The dispute broke out Wednesday when members of a nationalist yeshiva, or seminary, moved into a building that the Greek Orthodox Church says it owns. The next day, Israeli border police sprayed tear gas on protesters who gathered in front of the building, including the aged Greek Orthodox patriarch, Diodorus I, and several other clergymen.

There are two parallel issues involved in the case: the narrow legality of the move and the question of under what circumstances any of Israel’s religious groups should be allowed to move onto the traditional turf of another.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who heads the rightist Likud Party, took the legalistic view. “In principle, Jews can live anywhere as long as the deal was within the law,” said the spokesman, Yossi Ahimeir.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Teddy Kollek, a longtime member of the center-left Labor Party, took the view that such a move is too delicate to be left to purely contractual arrangements. He criticized the yeshiva group’s action as undermining the city’s policy of fostering religious coexistence.

“This is the work of extremists who are concerned only with themselves and their own religious fervor,” Kollek said during a meeting with a U.S. Senate delegation headed by minority leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.)

Leftist peace activists are planning to demonstrate today in the Old City for the building’s return to the Greek church, and Mapam, a small left-wing faction in Israel’s Parliament, called for an investigation of where the funds came from to purchase the building.

One right-wing counterattack came from Elyakim Haetzneh, of the small Tehiya party. Criticism of the Jewish takeover of the building reflected a “diaspora mentality,” he said, referring to Jews living outside Israel.

He rejected the notion that non-Jews should be allowed to move into the Jewish Quarter, saying that, “the Jewish Quarter was won by Israel after the Arabs occupied and destroyed it and murdered its residents.”

Israel annexed the Old City along with other parts of the eastern half of Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East War.

While politicians jousted, the new Jewish residents moved belongings into the 72-room building, which was formerly a hospice built by a Greek patriarch early this century for Christian pilgrims.

“Jews have the right to live anywhere. This is a Jewish land,” said Yehuda Pinsky, who took reporters on a tour of the building.

The residents insisted that they want to be good neighbors. One said he moved into the building because he is interested in Christian culture. Another said that there had once been a synagogue nearby and that the yeshiva is simply trying to re-establish a Jewish religious presence.

Palestinians viewed the takeover as a new chapter in questioned land deals that have put Arab-dominated areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Israeli hands. There have been numerous conflicts over land bought by the Israeli government or privately through Arab intermediaries. The inhabitants, who often hold no title but have lived on the land for generations, sometimes know nothing of the purchase until they are evicted by the new owner.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who is on a visit to Israel, said that he “deplored the settlers’ action in terms of its locale and the timing over the Easter holiday.”

Originally, the Jewish families said they had bought the building outright; they have since modified their account to say they purchased a long-term lease. The company that made the purchase on behalf of the yeshiva has been identified as a Panamanian-registered company. It is not known who the principals of the firm are.

The person who sold the rights to the Christian Quarter building is an Armenian resident of the city who has disappeared since the sale. His family had rented the building since the 1930s, Greek church officials said.

Members of the Armenian community say that he has been barred from entering the cloistered Armenian Quarter of the Old City for eight years because of suspicions that he has been involved in underworld activities.

An Israeli court will hear arguments from the Greek church and the new residents this week and decide whether to evict the Jewish group.