“That Which is Distasteful To Thee Do Not Do To Another”
A 2005 expose by the Maariv newspaper of the deals to lease the two hotels, and an additional building, caused uproar among Palestinians both within and outside of the church, and led to the sacking of then-patriarch Irenaios.
Irenaios claimed that the deals had been reached and signed by his finance director, Nikolas Papadimos, without his approval and that Papadimos had misused a power of attorney issued to him to allow him to handle other affairs of the church.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/court-sides-with-right-wing-jewish-group-in-old-city-church-property-dispute/ – 8/1/2017
Talk about shady business deals . . . .
This should be an issue taken up by the Jewish mainstream in Israel and in the Diaspora.
I’ve often disagreed here with Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, and the basis for much has been always about truth telling (x the Cold War ๐ ) but here is a story about a “purchase” covertly engineered, plainly involving a questionable subaltern of the Greek Orthodox Church, and also involving an absurdly deep undervaluing of a significant critical historic Jerusalem property, plus an unseemly degree of ruthless and apparently vindictive behavior on the part of the buyers.
I’ve shared the video to the “reading page” I keep on Facebook for Back-Channels and wouldn’t have done that if the framing had been, say, “Palestinians v Jews”, but this would appear from either side to be a story about corruption, questionable dealing, and unchecked ruthlessness.
The corruption of great religious institutions seems a fact of life — have a look into the Russian Orthodox Church under Putin (the Vikings as Varangians adopted Christianity via the Greek Orthodox Church) — but for those who would lay claim to “Integrity” and “Righteousness”, a deal like this one laid out in the open presents a challenge to exactly those two assertions.
Related Online
The list is bare-bones, chronological, and not comprehensive, but it represents what one will find with a quick look-see into controversy surround the sale of the lease of the Imperial Hotel.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/21/jerusalem-jaffa-gate-new-imperial-hotel-final-showdown – 7/21/2019
–33–
BackChannels 