Jerusalem is the heart of the Middle East conflict from the time of the Crusades until today. The occupation of the imposing building of Ottoman architecture of the Petra hotel, including the Jafa gate, through which General Allenby entered victoriously in 1917 when defeating the army of the Sultan of Istanbul, by a group of radical Jewish exalts fuels the issue of Israeli Judaization of the Christian and Muslim quarters of the city. One of the reasons that caused the second intifada of 2000 was the irruption of General Sharon in the esplanade of the Mosques and also his acquisition of several houses near the crowded door of Damascus. A large part of the Christian quarter – the other, called Armenian, is a fiefdom of its patriarchate, because the king of Armenia was the first to convert to Christianity – is owned by the historic Greek Orthodox patriarchate, and on many voussoirs in their houses the letters of the powerful religious institution.
For two decades there has been a convoluted litigation pending between the settlers of Atenet Lohanin, of the State of Israel, and the patriarchy over the acquisition of various properties, including this hotel on the corner of the little street of the Latin patriarchy, in whose small Hotel Gloria used to stay. With Saliba, his employee, whose wife washed my clothes, I was able to enter some humble homes in the neighborhood, which has been depopulated of Christians in these decades of occupation and annexation of the Arab sector, which before 1967 had been subjected to King Abdalah of Jordan, assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951. It is a small enclosure where, in addition, the Greek Catholic Patriarchate and other Christian establishments are located. Patriarch Teófilo III fears that if the settlers are not expelled, Petra will become another center of Judaization of the capital.
Shortly after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 I stayed in this hotel, during the curfew. Then the gates of the city were closed, like Jafa, the streets were empty and only patrols of Israeli soldiers circulated. But on Shabbat a multitude of Israelis, groups from the kibbutz, discovered the newly conquered neighborhoods.
At the hotel I met a Christian Arab who spoke perfect Spanish and was called Don Julián. He was a well-dressed man with a silver-headed cane, a pipe smoker, and had been a highly regarded guide for many years. He had accompanied heads of state, kings like Alfonso XIII after his abdication, He accompanied Me to the Holy Sepulchre, to the esplanade of the Mosques. He was the first to tell me “I am Palestinian. I have suffered many wars – looking at the empty walls of the hotel – so many wars. Palestine will always be a doomed land! We will have to start all over again, buy other furniture, rugs, other lamps for the hotel”. That night in the summer of 1967 I was the only client of the Petra. Along the gloomy street, a patrol of soldiers sang the popular song of that summer Jerusalem, Jerusalem. When I went down to the lobby I saw that the Jaffa gate had redoubled the Israeli picket lines. Petra is one of the most outstanding civil buildings in Christian Jerusalem.
