Court Lets Jewish Settlers Stay in Christian Quarter

Israel’s Supreme Court today allowed 150 Jewish settlers to remain in a compound in the city’s Christian Quarter until the high court hears more arguments in the case.

The high court ruled in response to an order by Atty. Gen. Yosef Harish on Thursday that the settlers immediately leave the 72-room, four-building complex inside Jerusalem’s walled Old City.

The settlers created a furor and ignited demonstrations by both Christians and Muslims when they moved into the building owned by the Greek Orthodox Church on April 11. The church claims that a former tenant illegally sold his user rights to the building to the settlers.

Harish, backed by two lower court decisions, on Thursday ordered the settlers to leave because their presence had harmed Christian-Jewish relations in Jerusalem.

But the three-judge Supreme Court panel issued a restraining order against the eviction today and asked Harish to show at a hearing next Thursday why his order should not be annulled.

“The settlers will be allowed to stay until there is a final decision by the high court,” said attorney Dan Avi-Yitzhak, who represents a Panama-based company that bought the rights to use the complex.

Yohanan Altbauer, an attorney representing the church, said the judges offered a compromise under which the settlers would have left the building, but a few company representatives would have remained until lower courts decided on tenancy rights.

“Both sides rejected the compromise,” Altbauer said.

Tensions rose because the settlement upset the traditional division of the religious communities in the Old City. There are about 50,000 Muslims, 7,000 Christians and 4,000 Jews in the old, walled city.

The settlement also has political implications, since the Old City is part of the area captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel annexed the area into its capital, but most countries, including the United States, do not recognize Israel’s claim to sovereignty. Palestinians have demanded that Jerusalem become the capital of their would-be independent state.