Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority on Monday said it was backing down from a contentious plan to encompass Christian holy sites on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives in a national park following vociferous outcry from major churches.
The Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem rises above Jerusalem’s Old City and its sites are holy to three monotheistic faiths. Its slopes to the east of the Old City are studded with churches of various sects that mark the traditional places of events in the life of Jesus.
The Armenian, Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches petitioned Israel’s environmental protection minister, whose department is in charge of the Parks Authority, in a letter last week.
The churches expressed the “gravest concern and unequivocal objection” to the plan, saying it would disrupt the longstanding state of affairs and aims to “confiscate and nationalize one of the holiest sites for Christianity and alter its nature”.
Farid Jubran, general counsel of the Catholic Church’s Custody of the Holy Land, said that by making an area that includes church property part of a national park it was “putting the control in the hands of people who have no other agenda but to wipe off any non-Jewish characteristic on this mountain”.
Read the article by Ilan Ben Zion in Sight Magazine.