Kegham Balian
@kbalian90 • 8,425 subscribers
Jerusalemite Armenian | Writing: @ArmenianWeekly and @TWIPMagazine | Correspondent @301arm | Comms @SavetheArQ | Ceramist @BalianCeramics.
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🚨BREAKING: On Sunday at around 1:00 a.m., six Jewish Israelis attacked the entrance to the Saint James Monastery in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. They took turns spitting at the monastery entrance. When they noticed an Armenian woman filming the incident from her home, they threw stones at her window while shouting insults: “Get back inside, you daughter of a whore!” Israeli Police were called to the scene and detained the suspects. The Armenian Patriarchate filed a formal complaint. According to official police records, three of the suspects were issued restraining orders barring them from entering Jerusalem’s Old City for 15 days. The investigation is ongoing. Further updates will be provided as they become available.
Kegham Balian713,917 views • 1 month ago
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For nearly 800 years, the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been in the hands of two prominent Muslim Jerusalemite families. This tradition dates back to Salah ad-Din’s conquest of Jerusalem in 1187, helping preserve the delicate Status Quo and preventing daily access to the Church from becoming a flashpoint among the different Christian custodians. Today, as the great doors undergo renovation, their descendants, Adeeb Joudeh and Wajeed Nuseibeh, still keep that same balance: one safeguards the key, the other opens and closes the Church each day.
Kegham Balian482,701 views • 6 months ago
George Deek, Israel's Special Envoy to the Christian World, is full of shit and hypocrisy. I have receipts. Yesterday in an interview with Fox News, he said: "We see the ethnic cleansing of the Christians who have been diminished from the 20% of the population of the Middle east to less than 2% of the population today" In 2023, George Deek was the Ambassador of Israel to Azerbaijan during the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Israel, Turkey, and Azerbaijan were complicit in that ethnic cleansing, leading to the mass exodus of 150,000 Christian Armenians which saw the indigenous Armenian Christian population drop from 100% to 0%. Not a single Armenian Christian remains on a 2,000-year-old Armenian homeland; destroyed churches, desecrated graves, a historical Christian patrimony on the road to erasure. He didn't do anything to prevent that. On the contrary, he congratulated Aliyev's dictatorial regime in an interview with state-controlled Azeri outlet CaliberAz: "He described his diplomatic mission as deeply meaningful, particularly noting the honor of visiting the territories liberated by Azerbaijan. "It was an honour for me to be the first Israeli ambassador to Karabakh, to see Shusha, Fuzuli, and Kalbajar," Deek said, emphasising the symbolic importance of that visit." Furthermore, earlier this year Israeli FM Gideon Sa'ar dangled the recognition of the Armenian Genocide as a proverbial albeit performative fuck you to Erdogan's regime, only to have the motion removed from the Knesset's agenda, at the behest of Baku: "Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev ordered his government to immediately contact Israel following the Knesset’s decision since it was deemed “unfair, does not reflect historical reality, and unacceptable.”" Again, no public statement or visible display of condemnation, let alone outrage from Israel's Special Envoy to the Christian world. George Deek's great-grandmother was a survivor of that very same genocide, which claimed the lives of 1,5 million Armenians. Let that sink in. In conclusion, do not let this hasbara PR stunt fool you. The position of Special Envoy to the Christian world was created for damage control, to rehabilitate Israel's image, and certainly not to build bridges over supposed shared values. As evidenced, George Deek will defend the plight of Christians only if they align with the geopolitical interests of Israel, irrespective of any moral imperative. The ethnically cleansed Armenians of Artsakh are a living testament to that hypocrisy. Sources: - - - - -
Kegham Balian57,965 views • 22 days ago
That is not the Cathedral of Saint James in Jerusalem. It is the Cathedral of Saint James in Šibenik, Croatia. This is the Cathedral of Saint James in Jerusalem. If you're going to pretend to care about Christians in Jerusalem, at the very, very least, get your facts straight.
Kegham Balian39,782 views • 26 days ago
For over 50 years, 90-year-old Jerusalemite Armenian Hovan Bedrossian has rung the bells of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Holy Fire day. This year, he won’t. He’ll be forced to watch it on TV, like all the Armenians of Jerusalem, and all the other Christians.
Kegham Balian110,182 views • 5 months ago
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Putting politics aside: In all seriousness, you really think this is normal behavior toward an 11-year-old boy with a broken arm? Even if, for the sake of argument, you claim this was self-defense because of the rocks, what possible purpose did the smoke grenade serve at the end?
Kegham Balian45,192 views • 3 months ago
Do we have to get fucking shot for Israel to properly deal with Christian persecution in Jerusalem? In an interview with CNN's Clarissa Ward, George Deek, Israel's Special Envoy to the Christian World, stated: "We should be able to distinguish between serious incidents that require serious action, and the false narrative that this is somehow representative of the Israeli state, Israeli society, or Christian life in Israel." Where the hell is that serious action? Since 2023, Israeli watchdog organization RFDC (Religious Freedom Data Center) has documented nearly 500 incidents targeting Christians, including spitting, desecration of holy sites, physical violence, and verbal abuse. I personally have friends that have been stabbed, pepper sprayed, guns pointed at them. "You are all Goys, when the messiah comes, you will all die!" "Death to Armenians! Death to Christians!" "This is not your land, get out of here!" Has there been accountability by the Israeli authorities? No. Had the opposite occurred, had Armenians harassed Jews on this scale, they would face the full fury of the law, and rightfully so. But, there is a double standard. There has always been a double standard: Rules for thee, but not for me. They get detained for a bit, and then released, with zero consequences. In my view, the position of Special Envoy to the Christian world was, predictably, only created for damage control to remedy Israel's image; a strategy that is an insult to Christians that experience this level of aggression on a near daily basis with impunity. You may ask, for argument's sake, how many Armenians harass Jewish Israelis? The answer is zero.
Kegham Balian19,610 views • 1 month ago
![BREAKING: Israeli News Channel Kan 11 Insults the 1,700-Year-Old Armenian Presence in Jerusalem. [Video with subtitles⬇️] On Thursday, May 15, 2025, following Armenia’s Eurovision performance of “Survivor” by Armenian artist PARG, a commentator on Israel’s Kan 11 News mockingly stated: “I can’t believe we gave ‘these’ guys an entire quarter in Jerusalem. Survivor — that’s how we feel after watching this song.” This was not only insulting, but egregiously inaccurate. Though Kan 11 brands itself as a news channel, its grasp of historical fact appears to be tenuous at best — and nonexistent at worst. So allow me to provide a brief historical input: Breaking News for Kan 11: •The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to 301 AD — the year Armenia became the first nation in the world to officially adopt Christianity as its state religion. This milestone led to a wave of Armenian pilgrimage to the Holy Land and, over centuries, the stone-by-stone establishment of what is now known as the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. •No one "gave us" a quarter in Jerusalem. We fought for it, built it, over centuries, preserved it and continue to defend it to this day. In the face of such ignorant and racially-laced commentary, we assert — and will always assert — the truth: The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem has always been Armenian, and it will always remain Armenian. We are a people who have endured genocide, dispossession, cultural erasure, and generational trauma — and yet we remain, we are still, against all odds, still here. We remain more united than ever, and we remain resolute in defending our rightful and ancestral presence in the Holy City that is Jerusalem. Kan 11 crossed a red line. An immediate public apology is required to the Armenian people — for the insult, for the distortion, and for the disgrace.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1923390077297733839/amplify_video_thumb/1923389959601311744/img/YAMkrhK194l3f2ip.jpg)
BREAKING: Israeli News Channel Kan 11 Insults the 1,700-Year-Old Armenian Presence in Jerusalem. [Video with subtitles⬇️] On Thursday, May 15, 2025, following Armenia’s Eurovision performance of “Survivor” by Armenian artist PARG, a commentator on Israel’s Kan 11 News mockingly stated: “I can’t believe we gave ‘these’ guys an entire quarter in Jerusalem. Survivor — that’s how we feel after watching this song.” This was not only insulting, but egregiously inaccurate. Though Kan 11 brands itself as a news channel, its grasp of historical fact appears to be tenuous at best — and nonexistent at worst. So allow me to provide a brief historical input: Breaking News for Kan 11: •The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to 301 AD — the year Armenia became the first nation in the world to officially adopt Christianity as its state religion. This milestone led to a wave of Armenian pilgrimage to the Holy Land and, over centuries, the stone-by-stone establishment of what is now known as the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. •No one "gave us" a quarter in Jerusalem. We fought for it, built it, over centuries, preserved it and continue to defend it to this day. In the face of such ignorant and racially-laced commentary, we assert — and will always assert — the truth: The Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem has always been Armenian, and it will always remain Armenian. We are a people who have endured genocide, dispossession, cultural erasure, and generational trauma — and yet we remain, we are still, against all odds, still here. We remain more united than ever, and we remain resolute in defending our rightful and ancestral presence in the Holy City that is Jerusalem. Kan 11 crossed a red line. An immediate public apology is required to the Armenian people — for the insult, for the distortion, and for the disgrace.
Kegham Balian162,765 views • 1 year ago