Report: Vatican Pushing for Control of Mount Zion Christian leaders push Israel to hand over control of area housing King David’s tomb, ‘last supper’ hall.

Christian leaders reportedly pressured Israel to turn over control of Mount Zion in Jerusalem during a clandestine meeting of senior city officials.

The meeting took place Tuesday in the office of Attorney Amnon Merhav, the director-general of the Jerusalem municipality. It was attended by officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, President’s Office, Tourism Ministry, Police, Kotel Rabbi’s Office, and more.

During the meeting, representatives of Christian groups in the capitalpushed Jerusalem leaders to give the Catholic Church control over the Mount Zion area that includes the “Hall of the Last Supper.” There have been reports that Israel’s government is planning to turn the building in question over to the Vatican prior to the Pope’s expected visit in May.

Pope Francis is expected to visit Israel and to lead a service in the Hall of the Last Supper.

The same building that houses the hall, which is holy to Christianity, also includes the tomb of King David, a holy site frequently visited by Jews. Some Church officials expressed upset over what they termed a major increase recently in the number of Jewish visitors to the site.

Representatives of the Israel Police and Shin Bet who were at the meeting warned that turning the building over to the Church could spark Jewish “price tag” attacks.

Several Members of Knesset and ministers have asked the Prime Minister to respond to rumors that he is planning to give control of the Mount Zion compound to the Vatican. To date, the Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry have refused to respond, although Deputy Foreign Minister Zev Elkin stated in mid-2013 that the government has no such plans.

In response to reports regarding the Tuesday meeting, the city of Jerusalem released a statement saying, “The state of Israel and theJerusalem municipality are paying special attention to the Mount Zion compound, with the goal of improving and updating the infrastructure and the municipal service, and of calming tension… The municipality will continue to lead the process as the central sovereign power on Mount Zion.”

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to respond.

King David's Tomb Restored

Renovations of the structure housing the Tomb of KingDavid, just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, were completed. IsraelNationalNews.com A ceremony was held, Thursday, to mark the completion of renovations at structure housing the Tomb of King David on Mount Zion, just outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City. An elegant new Torah scroll was brought into the newly-installed ark. The renovation consisted of new flooring, restoration of the arches and ancient walls, replacement of furniture and lighting to give it a new appearance. It's beauty and glory was restored, at the center of which is the feeling of a synagogue and holy place. The Israel Police put up a post there to protect the site against vandalism and desecration. VIDEO: A tour through the tomb			Most Read Most Comments A Bochur's Test in Emunah Jul 29, 2013 Dovid Carroll, 52, OBM Aug 2, 2013 He Who Feeds the Hungry Jul 30, 2013 Glimpse Into the Rebbe's House Jul 30, 2013 A Night for the Palate, Kidney Aug 1, 2013

Vatican making another drive for David's tomb

Giulio Meotti reports that the Vatican is once again attempting to gain control over Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, some of which, includingKing David's tomb (pictured) are also sacred to Jews.

The Vatican’s former arcibishop in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, just promoted an appeal to the European Union and United States to “stop the Hebraization of Jerusalem”.

Two weeks ago Msgr. David-Maria Jaeger, who was recently appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Vatican’s highest court, talked in Washington about a current U.S. Supreme Court case over whether an American boy born in Jerusalem should add Israel after the name of the historic city on his U.S. passport. Jaeger said that the question about Jerusalem is not “whether it is the capital of Israel, it is a question of whether it is a part of a national territory”.

A few days earlier, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, gave a speech to greet the bishops of Europe and North America during their annual pilgrimage in Israel, in which Twal denounced “the Israeli right wing invading more and more of Jerusalem and trying to transform it into an only Hebrew-Jewish city, excluding the other faiths”.

Claudette Habesch, the Caritas general-secretary in Jerusalem, a Vatican NGO that works in social activities, just released an interview to Zenit news agency, in which he “christianized” the Palestinian Intifada against “what we call the Checkpoint of Humiliation”.

In September, Patriarch of Jerusalem Twal was at the White House for a meeting with the American administration as well as to support the PA statehood bid at the UN. Twal repeated Benedict XVI’s speech of May 13, 2009 in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, one of the most political speeches ever pronounced by Ratzinger during his pontificate. It was given in front of the most eloquent symbol of the conflict: the security wall between Israel and the PA areas.

On that day the Pope spoke specifically of an “independent Palestinian state”.

The Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, the Vatican’s powerful agency for worldwide pilgrimages, just organized a “marathon for peace” in Jerusalem to protest against the security fence near Bethlehem and to support "Palestinian political rights". The march began on the Mount of Olives, “where the Last Supper took place”.

On December 1st, several Christian and Muslim dignitaries met in Beit Sahour for a conference on “How to live together in a future Palestinian state?”. Patriarch Emeritus of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, also attended the event organized by Al-Liqa, a Vatican ecumenical center based in Bethlehem.

Sabbah said that “recourse to the UN for a Palestinian state is a step toward peace”. Last summer, Latin Patriarch Twal took part in a meeting in London with Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, in which the Vatican envoy denounced the “more than 550.000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank” and “the demography of Jerusalem changing rapidly with the sacred space being threatened”.

Read the whole thing.

Of course, this has come up before. But the difference is that right now there is an administration in Washington that would be all too happy to put the screws to Israel, and if that administration remains in power thirteen months from now, life may be difficult around here.

What could go wrong?