The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel is hoping it will have enough time to file its petition in Supreme Court before Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signs away Israel's right to the 'Sergei Compound,' warned the group's program coordinator, Einat Korman, on Monday.
The Forum charged Monday that a troika of ministers has been working to complete the deal with the Russian Federation , representing Moscow , before the Israeli public realizes they've given away Jerusalem 's Russian Compound.
Korman said her group had hoped that last week's meeting with the Knesset State Control Committee would put the brakes on Livni, Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On, Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Committee chairman Michael Eitan (Likud) had called state officials and Livni, said Korman, "to stop any progress in this negotiation until this issue is dealt with in the Knesset and Supreme Court." She said the Legal Forum plans to file its petition within the next week to block the government's transfer of property rights to the Russian Federation .
However, she said, the effort may have come too late.
Decision Made Long Ago
"What we know now is that they didn't really stop, and we are afraid they will conclude this arrangement in the next week or two," said Korman. "What [the committee chairman] says is just a recommendation and the government doesn't have to follow it. The government does what it pleases," she added.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Chayat confirmed that the negotiations have indeed been concluded, and that all that remains is for Minister Livni's signature to grace the dotted line. However, he told Israel National News, Livni is not yet ready to sign, because "she is waiting for the committee's recommendation [to be published], even though the Knesset has no legal standing in that decision."
Chayat admitted that the three ministers, along with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, had indeed approved the transfer of ownership some time ago. He also acknowledged that the move was made unilaterally, without a Cabinet vote, adding that none was needed.
"Actually, the finance minister is in charge of government properties and he can decide to give up an Israeli government property without having the government and the Knesset authorize it. It is part of his powers. That decision can be made solely by the finance minister," he explained.
Any appeal by the Legal Forum, he said, would be irrelevant. "They have no grounds," Chayat said. "If there is an appeal to the Supreme Court, the foreign minister will wait for the Supreme Court to decide, obviously. But we know that the court cannot decide otherwise in any case, because the finance minister has the authority to make this decision alone."
'The Compound Belongs to Russia '
There is apparently no dispute over whether the property belongs to Russia; it does, in the same way "as the Catholic churches in eastern Jerusalem belong to the Vatican, and the American Consulate property belongs to the United States," explained Chayat.
The property was bought at the end of the 19th century by organizations related to the Russian Orthodox Church, according to a brief published by the Legal Forum, and used for the needs of Russian pilgrims who came to the Holy Land . It was also used for political and intelligence needs.
The "Sergei Compound" was owned by Great Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the uncle of the Tzar Nicolai II in his capacity as the chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society. (IOPS)
After the October Revolution, the Soviet government of the USSR claimed to be the legal heir of the property. However, "white Russian" immigrants established an IOPS abroad, and that branch claimed to be the "real" IOPS, thus creating a dispute.
Since 1952, the Israeli General Guardian has had formal legal guardianship and ownership rights to the property. At the beginning of the 1970's, the buildings were leased to the Israel Nature Protection Society and the Ministry of Agriculture.
When diplomatic relations were re-established between Israel and the Soviet Union in the 1980's, the Soviets – and subsequently, the Russians – repeatedly demanded ownership over the property, including the Sergei Compound.
In 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised President Vladimir Putin he would resolve the matter in a way that would be favorable to Russia .
In 2007, Israel 's Foreign Ministry informed the Russian Embassy that Israel had decided to transfer the property rights of the Sergei Compound to the Russian Federation .
Allowing Moscow a Foothold in Jerusalem
According to Chayat, the decision to transfer the property to Russia now, despite its recent invasion of Georgia , its construction of a nuclear reactor in Iran and its sale of anti-aircraft surface-to-air ballistic missile systems to Israel 's enemies, was not made lightly.
" Israel 's long-term interests are the only reasons for the decision," he said. "The Foreign Ministry sees this as the best decision within the long-term relationship with Israel and Moscow ."
Legal Forum attorney Yitzchak Bam sees it differently. "Another stupidity of the government; there's no other way to describe it," he said bluntly.
But both Chayat and Bam agree that if and when the transfer takes place, any security access to the property that Israel might have, will come at a very high price.
"According to international law, there is a legal right to go into any embassy," acknowledged Chayat. "It's not done, but you can, of course, arrest a diplomat if he does something wrong. However, any government should take into consideration that the sovereign nation whose diplomat it arrests, or whose embassy it enters without permission, may also do the same in its own country."
Bam concurs. "Officially, they will be able to enter. Unofficially, they might not. In fact, they don't do that, even though legally they can. Every such move will have diplomatic consequences with Russia .
De facto, they will be pretty immune there."
Whether the current tenants of the building will be able to remain there and what rights they might have, is another matter.
According to Israel 's letter of consent to transfer the property rights, there is a stipulation that the occupational status of all the tenants will be left for future negotiation. "But since the negotiations will be about their eviction," said Bam pointedly, "the only question is not if, but rather, when."
Korman added that the move would bolster Russian imperial aspirations in the Middle East , something the group believes is "undesirable from the point of view of US interests as well."
Both she and Bam underscored the group's belief that the move "will not improve relations with Russia " and added that it is unlikely that the Russian position on issues such as Iran or military trade with Syria will change over a transaction for the Sergei Compound.Comment on This Story
=======================
Date: Wednesday, September 03 2008
I refer to a shady transfer to Putin of what is known as the Russian Compound - a 17-acre site between Jaffa and Hanevi'im roads, close to the Old City walls. According to a Foreign Ministry letter that has come into this writer's possession, the deal was agreed on between the two governments on December 12, 2007. The transaction could not be completed, however, until the land was transferred from Israel's Custodian General of land and property to the government itself.
According to the same Ministry letter, this final clearance was ratified by a Jerusalem court on August 27. Like so many other concessions on outposts and the security fence, this is yet another surrender concocted between the executive and the judiciary, without any parliamentary involvement or oversight.
According to the Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish state's judiciary is the most activist in the democratic world and dominates the elected branches of government, the legislative and the executive. The ultimate check on the judicial branch of government is the power of appointing judges, which is retained by the elected branches of government in the overwhelming majority of democracies. This enables the people's representatives to ensure that no judges with extreme views (including extreme views of their own political prerogatives) are appointed.
In Israel, such a check is nonexistent. Judges in Israel are appointed by a small committee controlled by the judges of the Supreme Court and their close allies in the Israeli bar. The process is secretive and subject to manipulation and abuse. It has led to the domination of the court by judges with strongly liberal views who have succeeded in alienating large segments of Israel's population.
Given Russia's close association with Iran and Syria, the prospect of its establishing an enclave in the heart of the Jewish capital is daunting indeed. It conjures up images of Arab terrorists fleeing into the compound and Israeli security personnel unable to pursue them without precipitating an international crisis. In many respects it would be tantamount to inviting a Russian spy ship to permanently dock right in the middle of an Israeli naval base.
Dubbed "New Jerusalem" by the Turks, the compound's early buildings included a church, hostel, hospice and a consulate. In 1890, half of the site was redeveloped by Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as a palatial guesthouse for visiting Russian aristocrats.
Later requisitioned by the British forces during the period of the Mandate, the compound was nicknamed "Bevingrad" by the Jewish underground, after the hated British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, and was seen as a symbol of British oppression in Palestine. In 1947, two brave fighters, Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, blew themselves up in the compound's jail on the night before their execution, using a hand grenade that had been smuggled into the cell.
Israel purchased the compound in 1964 (excluding only some church buildings) from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch for $3.5 million. Due to lack of hard currency, the price was paid in an equal value of citrus exports. Since the date of this so-called Orange Deal, the site has been used to accommodate various government offices and the Sergei Building has been home to the Jerusalem Magistrates Court.
During his state visit to Israel in 2005, Vladimir Putin paid a private visit to the compound and the magnificent Sergei Building is said to have "captured his heart." He declared his intention to get it back for Russia.
Much has changed in the three years since that backslapping state visit. While Putin has not stopped pushing the legal process for the return of the site, he has said lots of kind words about his concern for Israel, which he insists is a good friend of the Russian people. Sadly, his actions over these past three years have exposed him as an enemy of Israel and, more recently, a threat to the free world.
Not content with supplying Iran's mullahs with all they need to accomplish Ahmadinejad's wish to "wipe Israel off the map," Putin is supplying them with his most advanced Iskander missiles, which will make it even more difficult for Israel to neutralize this existential nuclear threat. Closer to hand, Putin has been arming the Syrian dictator with advanced missiles and looks to be creating a base for his nuclear warships in Syrian ports not far north of Haifa.
In many ways, Putin's actions are little different from those of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. They both make public claims to be friends of Israel while doing everything possible to weaken and destroy the Jewish state.
But Olmert deals with both these men the way he deals with all members of the axis of evil. "Give them some land" is his strategy - without asking for anything in return. This is the prime minister who boldly told fraud investigators that American whistleblower Morris Talansky gave him all that cash without expecting anything in return. The police were incredulous. But to anyone who has seen Olmert handing Israel's enemies land, prisoners, rifles, bullets and jeeps for nothing in return, why should this come as a surprise? It's his tried and trusted business model.
Probably the most galling aspect of Olmert's discredited leadership is how he and his colleagues presume to carve up and surrender parts of Eretz Yisrael as if it were theirs to give. To keep Shas in the coalition they continue to deny what every Israeli knows for a fact: that half of Jerusalem has already been offered to Abbas. In Turkey, Olmert's lawyers have put the entire Golan Heights on the table. And then there is the backdrop discussion of 1967 borders and returning refugees, both of which topics seem lately to have changed from red lines to amber lights.
The '67 borders issue becomes more significant the more one delves into this new Russian interest in the Holy Land. In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, Ksenia Svetlova reported that the Russian Accounts Chamber (government audit office) published the following announcement on its website in June:
"The PNA [Palestinian National Authority] has passed to Russian authorities three land lots in Jericho during a special ceremony which took place at the premises of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation in Moscow. The head of the Imperator Pravoslav Palestinian Society, Sergei Stepashin, assured that the restored property included three lots: a 12,000 sq.m. one and another two located in the area called al-Moskobiya [Moscow lands] in the city."
Svetlova further quoted an earlier Russian news agency report in April 2008 announcing that during Abbas's visit to Moscow, he agreed to transfer to the Russian government land in Bethlehem in addition to 35,000 sq.m. worth of property on the Mount of Olives and in Jericho.
It's clear that whatever agreements Olmert and his foreign minister are hiding from their own coalition partners and the citizens of Israel, they are already taken for granted by Abbas, to the extent that he is gifting the Russians territory he has not yet received.
Born in the Ukraine, Edelstein was a prisoner of conscience and jailed by the Soviets for applying to emigrate to Israel. Together with Natan Sharansky, he formed the Yisrael B'Aliyah party which took seven seats in the 1996 Knesset elections and later merged with Likud.
"This deal was first mentioned to me quite casually by a lawyer working in the Knesset," Edelstein said over coffee in Jerusalem last Friday. "It was so absurd that I really didn't take it seriously. But I agreed to submit a sha-ilta (member's question) and was astonished to receive confirmation of the intended transfer."
He said the Ministry said nothing about what was expected from the Russian government in return for the property.
"We could have asked for a thousand different things," says Edelstein. "We could have said: 'You want a presence in this place? Make it official put up your flag and move your embassy here.' We could have asked for the restoration of pension payments to one million émigrés from Russia."
There are countless options, but by the government's silence it seems to Edelstein that Israel is getting absolutely nothing in return. Beyond the loss of this strategic site to the Russian government, he worries about the precedent that would be set. "Next thing we will have the Greeks reclaiming the land on which the Knesset itself and the president's residence are standing. Where will it all end?"
In justifying the government's actions, the Foreign Ministry argues that the compound never was Israeli property in the first place and that the Custodian General was, at all times, holding the property in trust for its original Russian owners. But this seems to ignore two important facts:
First, the $3.5 million paid out by Israel in the sixties, whether in cash or oranges. Second, that the "original Russian owners" are neither Putin nor the Russian government. The prevailing Ottoman law prevented such property being owned by a foreign state. As Sergei Alexandrovich commissioned the project with private funds, the only relevant beneficiary of the Custodian's trust has to be the duke's family.
It can only be hoped that exposure of this disturbing story will cause Jews, both inside and outside Israel, to use whatever communal or logistical influence they can to bring pressure on the government in Jerusalem to cancel this private agreement, or at the very least to submit the proposals to a full vote in the Knesset. Israel is small enough for individuals to make a real difference.
In that spirit, this writer decided to write to one of the few living heirs of the Romanov dynasty. He happens to be Prince Phillip, duke of Edinburgh, husband of the Queen of England. The letter appears below:
Your Royal Highness,I hope you will not consider me too forward or presumptuous in addressing you on what amounts to "a family matter."
I am a British subject, having lived all my life in London. As an observant Jew, I have strong religious and emotional ties to the Land of Israel and its capital city of Jerusalem.
As a warden of my local synagogue, I have the privilege of making the weekly Sabbath blessing for the welfare of the Queen and Royal Family. This precedes a second blessing for the safety of the Jewish people in Israel. This letter is perhaps a rare opportunity to marry up the two blessings.
I enclose a photograph of one of Jerusalem's most famous landmarks. It is the magnificent Sergei Building, named after the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, an uncle of Tsar Nicholas II.
It is reported that this building "captured the heart" of Vladimir Putin on his recent presidential visit to Israel and he wants to get it back. However, the building never belonged to the Russian government. It has been held by Jerusalem's Custodian General since its legal acquisition from the Russian church patriarch in 1964. It currently houses the city's magistrates' court.
Unfortunately it has now been revealed that Ehud Olmert has agreed to hand over the Sergei Building and other parts of what is known as "The Russian Compound" to Mr Putin as one of his last acts as prime minister of Israel. Lawyers appealing this move maintain that Mr. Olmert's government has even less legal right to dispose of this property than Mr. Putin has rights to claim it back for Russia.
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Israel absorbed over a million Russian Jews who fled Soviet oppression. Now that it seems Russia is reverting to its Cold War ways, it would be deeply offensive to these émigrés to see a potential KGB base being gifted to Mr. Putin in the heart of their adopted capital city.
It has been widely held that, as Sergei Alexandrovich died without children, you, Sir, are probably the only truly legitimate claimant to this Romanov family property. I have it on good authority that a single letter from Your Royal Highness would halt this nefarious transaction in its tracks and probably stall it for many years to come.
This, Sir, is the purpose of my letter and appeal to you - for that single letter, which I feel the late Sergei Alexandrovich might well have written himself if he were alive today. History records that Jews suffered much worse under Tsarist pogroms than they did under Soviet oppression. But there is an opportunity here to bring some meaningful closure and comfort to the survivors of that dark era.
I have in mind that, with the required intervention on the part of Your Royal Highness, the property might be transferred to a trust for its conversion into a heritage center for the hundreds of thousands of Russian pilgrims who now have the freedom to visit Jerusalem each year.
I have access to lawyers who can pursue the proposed claim and to benefactors who will pay for the relocation of the courthouse and the refurbishment of the Sergei complex for the purpose envisaged.
When I started writing this letter, a verse from the Book of Esther came to mind. It is read aloud on Purim, the most joyous day in the Jewish calendar when we celebrate a miracle that averted the murder of all Jewish citizens of Persia by royal decree in 356 BCE. Queen Esther's cousin Mordechai presses her to intercede with the King. Reminding her of her Jewish ancestry, he says: "Perhaps it was for just such a time and an opportunity as this that you attained this position."
Your Royal Highness, you have been blessed with a long life and we all wish you well for many more happy and healthy years ahead. I am thinking perhaps it was for such a time and such an opportunity.
I very much hope to hear from you in favorable terms.Respectfully and sincerely yours,
Zalmi Unsdorfer
Posts
