The Cairo-based Arab League on Monday condemned the decision by the Israeli municipality in Occupied Jerusalem to impose property taxes on UN buildings and churches.
In a statement the League’s Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Palestinian and Arab Occupied Territories Sector Saeed Abu Ali considered the Israeli move as an “unprecedented aggression” on Jerusalem’s churches and an escalation against the holy city and its inhabitants.
The Israeli authorities through this decision seek to cancel the conventions signed with Vatican decades ago and to change deliberately and systematically the legal and historical status of the city he said.
This “dangerous unprecedented move” deprives Jerusalem’s churches from carrying out their duties he noted.
He urged the international community and the world’s Christian groups to assume their responsibilities and press Israel to stop its illegal actions against both Christians and Muslims in the holy city and to rescind the taxes decision.
The official also strongly condemned the approval of a draft resolution set by Israeli’s extremist justice minister on the annexation of further land from the West Bank and preventing Palestinians from heading to Israeli’s supreme council to defend their rights in this matter.
He deplored the endorsement of the Israeli municipality in Occupied Jerusalem on building of 300 new settlement units outside the Green line in addition to the confiscation of thousands of dunums from Palestinian land in northern Tulkarem.
Over recent weeks the Israeli municipality in Occupied Jerusalem has initiated a campaign to garner 650 million shekels from Jerusalem’s churches and UN offices.
Jerusalem’s Christian leaders Sunday decided to close the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old City of Jerusalem in protest of Israel’s abrupt tax policy and a proposed land appropriation law.
10 to 12 thousand Christians live in Occupied Jerusalem out of 300000 Palestinians setting up roots in the holy city.
