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November 20, 2008 | 5:26 pm

Outcry continues against Museum of Tolerance on Muslim cemetery

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Controversy has swirled for two years around the Simon Wisenthal Center’s plans to build a Museum of Tolerance, like that in Los Angeles, on top of a medieval Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Protesters have been out in force since the Israeli high ruled last month that the $250 million facility could be built.

Yesterday, a columnist fro the liberal Israeli daily, Haaretz, editorialized that the museum’s planned location is:

“a testament, as well, to the principle that Israel’s only reliable natural resource is irony. The walled area is a construction site where a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights organization dedicated to instilling the lessons of the Holocaust and combating hatred, is building a Museum of Tolerance and Center for Human Dignity atop an ancient Muslim cemetery.”

And today a coalition of Jewish peaceniks and the L.A. chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (that ought to fire up the Jewish right) wrote a letter urging Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center’s dean and founder, to withdraw plans for the Frank Gehry-designed museum:

“Building a ‘Museum of Tolerance’ atop the cemetery, unlike the admirable goal of furthering tolerance and understanding, will only add to the existing pain and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, irreversibly damage relations between Muslims and Jews worldwide and sow new feelings of animosity and division for generations to come,” CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush wrote.

Some Muslims believe that the cemetery was once the largest Muslim burial ground in Palestine and serves as the final resting place of some of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions. Scholars hold that the cemetery is probably only a few hundred years old. Regardless, I’ve heard a lot more opposition to the museum than support. Add to the field of critics Buzzy Gordon, a former Israeli spokesman, who wrote a column today for The Forward titled “An Intolerable Spot for a Museum”:

Can a museum under the mantle of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stand up to comparisons with efforts in Europe to erect modern buildings on land that was once Jewish cemeteries or concentration camps? Imagine that kind of outcry!

Jerusalem is too fragile a place for a flamboyant building, however well-intentioned, that creates ill will among a significant sector of the population that shows no signs of accepting it. As one call to action put it: “The legal battle has been lost… we must move on to the political battle.” Is a so-called Museum of Tolerance worth turning the Holy City into a battleground once again, in the 21st century?

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Good post, Brad.

What kind of message is the Wiesenthal Center sending to the world by being intolerant of a holy Muslim site and one of Jerusalem’s archaelogical gems? Would the Center have built a museum of tolerance over Jewish graves and bones? Never.

Actions speak louder than words. The Center must exhibit true tolerance by extending respect toward all faiths and cultures. Move the museum to another site!

Comment by Real tolerance? on 11/21/08 at 5:59 pm

Israel is perhaps the oldest inhabited land on earth. Every shovelful of soil in the Holy Land falls on the site of something or other. if there is a Muslim cemetary, it too was laid upon the site of something Jewish, just as the mosque on the Temple Mount was built on the ruins of the Byzantine Chruch which was built on top of the presumed spot of the Israelite Temple. Damned intolerant of the Romans and the Arabs to squat on our Temple Mount. Let them move their stinking gem to Mecca. If Israel ever elects a Jewish administration, I would hope that they would sell all of the foreign mosques, forts, castles, statues and other crap littering Israel to wealthy Japanese collectors.

The fact is that Israel could bake a cake for every Arab illegally occupying Israel and still cause “pain and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, irreversibly damage relations between Muslims and Jews worldwide and sow new feelings of animosity and division for generations to come”. Let CAIR say what Israel and the Jews could do that would not do all that, besides all jumping in the Mediterranean Sea.

As far as ‘Some Muslims believe that the cemetery was once the largest Muslim burial ground in Palestine and serves as the final resting place of some of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions.’, some Muslims believe all kinds of nonsense including that that the Jews have no right to Israel, that the Arabs do have a ri9ght to Israel, that there was never a Jewish temple, that Muhammed’s horse was tethered at the Western Wall… They believe anything that is good for them to believe, so life is too short to worry about it.

Not least, the Arabs used the gravestones from the ancient and still active Jewish Mount of Olives cemetary to pave a road through it and build a hotel on it (and are still vandalizing it and covering it with graffitti), dynamited a hundred ancient synagogues in the Old City to Arabize and Muslimize it, peed all over the Church of the Nativity, and on the Jewish portions of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, dismantled the Tomb of Joseph and vandalized the Tomb of Samuel, shoot at visitors to the Tomb of Rachel, so let’s not all buy into their respect for sacred humanism. We’ll handle the judgements on tolerance and respect, OK?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/22/08 at 9:43 pm

The Simon Wiesenthal Center plans to desecrate a Muslim cemetery, a site that has historical and religious significance, and build a “Museum of Tolerance,” yet in the process, it is being completely intolerant of the views and beliefs of all Muslims. Is the irony lost on everyone but me? Tolerance is defined as “a willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs or practices of others.” By completely disregarding the millions of voices urging tolerance and respect, the Center is demonstrating that it has no idea of the true meaning of tolerance.

Comment by True meaning of tolerance on 11/24/08 at 1:10 pm

I doubt you know anything about the views and beliefs of all Muslims. For one thing, this cemetary was decommissioned, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x117498

by rulings of Haj Amin Husseini, the supreme Muslim authority at the time of the British Mandate, responsible for the management of the Islamic Waqf’s property with regard to cemeteries. Indeed, there was a cemetery at the site but 75 years ago, its sanctification was lifted and purpose changed.

In 1927, the Supreme Muslim Council, headed by the mufti, built the Palace inside the cemetery. As Benvenisti himself wrote in his book City of Stone, the mufti ruled that there should be no more burials there, and even ordered skeletons found at the site moved to another burial ground.

Furthermore, Islam permits moving graves which are declared mundras (abandoned).

Furthermore, “Mahmoud Darwasha, a respected Palestinian poet and a member of Arafat’s advisory staff once wrote in a poem to Israel: “Dig up your dead, take their bones with you and leave from our land”. Palestinians from Arafat down to the working class enthusiastically cheered this statement.” So to hell with them.

Furthermore, this policy was actually implemented in Gaza where Jewish graves were uprooted for no good reason at all in the ‘desengagement’.

Furthermore, Jews and their cemetaries have been evicted and desecrated from dozens of countries including the most venerable and ancient areas of original Judea, ‘West bank’ to you.

Tolerance is something Muslims have no knowledge of, and I recommend anyone inclined to call me names for this view to prove me wrong.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/24/08 at 3:46 pm

Good post Brad
I wish all other reporters are fair and just like you

Comment by Masoud Nassimi on 11/24/08 at 8:02 pm

In today’s oxymoronic world, ‘fair’ is obviously a relative concept. When Jews can reclaim their lives and property in Mecca and througout the Arab world, their kingdom in Yemen; when Arabs repeal all of their ‘laws’ applying the death panalty to any Arab who sells land to a Jew - life will be fair.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/25/08 at 4:21 am

Thank you Mr. Greenberg for your fair and balanced reporting.

Comment by Ashraf Ibrahim on 11/25/08 at 9:02 am

The definition of tolerance is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc. are different then ones own belief.  How can one build a museum of tolerance if they completely ignore the true meaning of tolerance?  One must question the intent of why someone would want to build something on top of a cemetery regardless of his or her religion, race, etc.  If one takes religion out of the matter would the issue of building the museum still be there? In conclusion, the mere debate of building something over any cemetery is an act of defiance to any tolerant belief.

Comment by Saleha on 11/25/08 at 4:51 pm

I advise you to read the previous responses to this topic, as well as this the actual statement by the Wiesenthal center, found here:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=6355245

They address all of your concerns as well as you unstated concern for the descration of Jewish homes, cemetaries, places of worship etc.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 11/25/08 at 5:14 pm

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