Israel's refusal to recognise the Patriarch's temporal role, had inhibited the Patriarch's ability to take the Government to court and froze Patriarchal bank accounts. This in turn threatened the maintenance of the Holy Places and the Patriarchate school system with 40,000 students. It has been alleged that the origins of the dispute are part of a forty-year attempt by Israeli settler organizations and politicians to open up the Patriarchate's extensive land holdings worth estimated hundreds of millions of dollars. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on February 4, 2007 that two Ministers in the Israeli Government offered to recognize Theophilos if he would give up control of several valuable properties. The Israeli press reports that senior officials of the Israeli government may have been involved in a fraudulent real estate transaction with the deposed Patriarch Irenaios and are afraid of the consequences of court action.