It has embraced foreign consulates for decades ... How has the use of buildings in the Old City of Jerusalem changed?

The Old City of Jerusalem is not only home to churches, monasteries, cultural centers, schools, and guesthouses owned by foreign governments or affiliated with missionaries, but in the past it hosted consulates of some countries or offices to take care of the affairs of various foreign communities.

Director of the Maps Department at the Arab Studies Association Khalil al-Tafakji said that the Old City of Jerusalem was the center during the Ottoman period, and therefore some of the country's consulates were concentrated in it, and then they left when the need to expand these buildings appeared with the start of urban construction outside the historic Jerusalem wall, explaining that some consulates It was rented or owned by some churches.

The expert touched on the location of both the British consulate in Bab Al-Khalil and the French consulate in Al-Saadia neighborhood in the old town that was rented by France from the Handal family, who came from Bethlehem.

Entrance to both Christ Church and the old building of the British Consulate in the old town (the island)

Diplomats, so the settlers of the

building were evacuated 4 years ago for the benefit of the settlers after a member of the Handal family sold the property to the Ateret Cohenim settlement association, and about the seasons of the leakage of the property from the hands of the Palestinians to the tentacles of the settler organizations. .

After the completion of the construction of the new building for the school outside the walls of Jerusalem and the departure of the old building, the Jerusalemite Qarsh family rented the property from the Handal family for years, and settlers evacuated it by force, armed with the "third generation" law, one of the laws that Israel enacted to facilitate the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.

While Al-Tufakji talked about geography and settlement, the researcher in the history of Jerusalem, Robin Abu Shamsiyya, touched on the reasons for the foreign countries ’keenness to take their headquarters from the buildings of the Old City in Jerusalem, the history of these buildings and their changing uses.

He said that at a time when European countries worked on strategic plans in the nineteenth century, in conjunction with the weakness of the Ottoman state and the beginning of its collapse, Jerusalem became part of the plans to obtain a certain status in the Middle East, so the countries began to establish religious and political bases and subsequently penetrated into Jerusalem in the educational and cultural aspects.

The headquarters of the American Consul, now turned to the Swedish Studies Center (Al-Jazeera)

A foothold in Jerusalem

and about the choice of these countries, the city of Jerusalem and not any other Palestinian city to establish these bases, Abu Shamsiah explained that at the beginning of the Napoleon Revolution in 1789 the concept of establishing and establishing a homeland that would gather the Jews to get rid of them in Europe appeared.

Thus, Jerusalem began to take on several dimensions, because in the Jewish and Christian sense it is the central city in the world, and the triple conflict between the Islamic, Christian and Jewish religions began between the Ottomans on the one hand, and the Jews' relentless attempts to reach something related to Jerusalem on the other hand, and between Christians and their primary role since the Crusader period in Directing any political or cultural effort towards Jerusalem from a third party.

The British Consulate was the first consulate in the Old City, according to the al-Quds researcher, in 1849, and its construction was completed in 1850 opposite the Jerusalem Citadel and next to the Church of Christ, which was built at the same time near Bab al-Khalil.

These two buildings are the oldest Protestant buildings constructed on the site with the aim of linking the religious concept with the incursion and political thinking of the British in the Old City.

Regarding the transformation of the use of the consulate building after its headquarters moved to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, Abu Shamsiyeh indicated that the building is still in the custody of the church and has been converted into offices, a residence for monks, and a guesthouse.

The British and French consulates were the only ones that used the buildings of the Old City as their headquarters, while the rest of the countries had offices to take care of the affairs of their communities in Jerusalem.

The building of the Spanish Sisters School in the Christian Quarter and the Spanish flag is shown flying at the top of the building (Al-Jazeera)

As for the Austrian post office located next to the Christ Church in Bab Hebron, part of it was devoted, for example, to taking care of and following up the affairs of the Austrians in the country, and this post was established in 1878 and also took care of the Bulgarian community at that time, and later the Austrian consulate was established in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and it is still there to this day. .

In the past, the Americans rented an office on Mount Zion, which is outside the historic walls, but the Consul's house was located inside the wall near the Hebron Gate opposite the Jerusalem Citadel, and this building has now turned into the Swedish Studies Institute.

As for the Greek Patriarchate in the Old City of Jerusalem, inside one of its halls, the affairs of the Greek citizens were also managed, but without a consular capacity. Abu Shamsia confirmed that the offices that managed parish affairs did not name consulates at the time, but they were carrying out all the duties of the consulate, and consulates were later established outside the walls with the increase in the number Nationals of countries and the emergence of the need to establish consulates in Jerusalem.

Entrance to the building that used to be the headquarters of the American Consul in the old city of Jerusalem (Al-Jazeera)

As for the Russian Parents' Office, for example, it operated from a building currently located in the western part of Jerusalem and occupied by the Israeli Magistrate’s Court, and was built in 1864 to manage the affairs of the Russians and all the subjects of the Balkan countries in addition to the Eastern European countries that were orthodox.

In 1878, the Spanish missionary institution, Our Lady of the Pilar - meaning "Our Lady of the Universe" - established a center for caring for orphans of Spanish origin in the Christian Quarter in the Old City, and the Spanish king later donated to finish the inauguration of the Spanish Nuns School that exists in the same place to this day.

The Spanish flag flies over this two-story school and an outdoor square with many Spanish royal symbols. Its outer rooms were used in the past to take care of the affairs of Hispanics in the country, before the consulate was established in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.