Turkish consulate in Urishlem (Jerusalem) sits on Syriac Church property

30/06/2026

URISHLEM — Turkey’s Consulate General in the Shimon HaTzadik compound of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Urishlem (Jerusalem) operates on Church property belonging to the Syriac community, Israeli news outlet Ynet Global reported.

The finding is based on a new study prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy (JCAP) which revealed that, “Turkey’s diplomatic mission operates from property owned by the Syriac Church, whose community was massacred under Ottoman rule, exposing a painful paradox days after Israel recognized the Armenian genocide,” describing it as a “deep moral contradiction.”

Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide

The news of the property status was published immediately after Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide on Sunday and Turkey’s sharp reaction. Israel has not recognized the parallel genocides of the Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) and Pontic Greek peoples. Turkey, which sees itself as the successor of the Ottoman Empire and ruled many centuries over Urishlem, accused Israel of falsifying the “events of 1915” as genocide.

In a statement on Sunday evening, The Turkish Foreign Ministry asserted that, “the Israeli government, which is systematically oppressing the Palestinian people before the eyes of the entire world and is currently being tried before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide against the residents of Gaza, is seeking to cover up its own crimes through this political decision regarding the events of 1915.”

On its website the Consulate General in Jerusalem states that it “is among the most important foreign representations of Türkiye as Jerusalem has a unique place in the Turkish-Ottoman heritage” and serves as the Turkish Ambassador to Palestine.

When Money Replaces Values

The Syriac Orthodox Church represents a community descended from victims of what Israeli scholars Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi call the “Thirty-Year Genocide” against Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire. Ynet writes:

“That is where the paradox emerges. A Church institution that has sought recognition of the genocide committed against its own Syriac people, and expressed solidarity with its Armenian neighbors, is at the same time enabling a Turkish diplomatic presence and influence in Jerusalem.”  

In remarks to the news outlet, a senior official in the Armenian Patriarchate told Ynet, “We were not familiar with the details and they surprised us. The Syriacs are connected to us. Unfortunately, this is what happens when money replaces values.”

The Sayfo Genocide of 1915 was committed by Ottoman Turks against the Armenian, Syriac, and Greek peoples.

The year 1915, during World War I, was only the culmination of a long genocide. The period 1894–1925 was a period that Israeli scholars Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi call the “Thirty-Year Genocide,” with 1915 being the bloody climax in a long series of violent events. In that year, Ottoman Turks brutally murdered millions of Armenians and Syriacs — in Israel officially recognized as Arameans, expelled hundreds of thousands more, and forcibly converted many of those who remained to Islam.

Later, from 1919 onwards, the Ottoman Turks massacred an estimated 353,000–500,000 Pontic Greeks and expelled many more in the Pontic Greek Genocide.