Planned museum of tolerance sparks outrage in Jerusalem

Chicago Tribune

(KRT)

JERUSALEM - Behind a 15-foot-high metal wall, coils of razor wire, teams of security guards and surveillance cameras, a controversial building project is under way in the heart of Jerusalem.

Archeological salvage workers are digging up hundreds of skeletons in a disused, centuries-old Muslim cemetery that now is the site of an ambitious initiative of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center: construction of The Center for Human Dignity - Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.

The imposing $150 million complex - designed by the prominent American architect Frank Gehry - will include a museum, conference and education centers, a library and a theater, all dedicated to promoting tolerance in Israel and abroad, planners say.

A mission statement says the museum will focus on "issues of human dignity and responsibility and seek to promote unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths."

Yet the location of the project, which requires unearthing the remains of Muslims buried in Jerusalem for hundreds of years, has drawn outrage from some Muslim leaders and legal action to stop the work.

"There can be no tolerance in an assault on a Muslim cemetery," said Sheik Ekrima Sabri, the mufti of Jerusalem, the highest-ranking Palestinian Muslim cleric in the city. "There can be no human dignity when the bones of the dead are scattered on the ground. We condemn this project and demand that it be stopped."

Sheik Raed Salah, a top leader of the Islamic Movement, a powerful force among Israeli Arabs, has loudly protested the construction work, and a foundation linked to the movement has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court, calling the project a desecration and deeply offensive to descendants of the dead.

"It is inconceivable that a center for tolerance can be built on the bones of our dead and the sanctity of our graves," Salah said. "What center for tolerance is this, established at the expense of the holy places of others? This is a scandal and a crime against one of the landmarks of our Islamic history and civilization in Jerusalem."

The 3-acre construction site is on part of what was once the sprawling Mamilla Cemetery, the largest Muslim graveyard in Jerusalem. In continuous use from the 12th Century until 1927, the cemetery contained hundreds of graves, including the tombs of scores of eminent Muslims: scholars, judges, fighters and holy men.

But after burials were stopped at the cemetery, it fell into disuse, and large parts of it were used for other purposes.

In the late 1920s, the Palestinian leader and mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, sanctioned the relocation of bones found during construction of a hotel built by the Supreme Muslim Council on former cemetery grounds.

A city park was built over much of the land in the 1960s, as well as schools and a hotel. In the 1980s a municipal parking lot was built in the area where the new museum is supposed to go up.

In its petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, the Al Aqsa Foundation, linked to the Islamic Movement, argues that under religious law, the sanctity of a Muslim cemetery is immutable and that it is forbidden to remove human remains or build on the area.

But expert opinions solicited by the Wiesenthal Center cite rulings by some prominent Muslim scholars permitting the use of abandoned cemetery land for farming or construction after the remains of the dead have decomposed, a period of more than 30 years.

Such a ruling obtained in 1964 enabled the construction of the park on most of the area of the Mamilla Cemetery, and similar rulings in 2001 allowed the clearing of cemeteries in Egypt for the construction of a ring road around Cairo, according to Shmuel Berkovitz, an Israeli attorney and expert on holy sites who submitted an opinion to the court.

Work at the museum site is now under the supervision of the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is excavating and documenting the Muslim graves before construction can begin. About 400 skeletons have been uncovered or identified out of an estimated 800 at the site. Under Israeli law, bones found in the area are to be transferred to the Religious Affairs Ministry for reburial.

Similar salvage excavations are mandatory across Israel in construction sites, often yielding archeological remains, including old burial grounds. In some cases, roads have been rerouted to protect ancient graves where Jews are thought to have been buried.

Hagai Elias, a spokesman for the Museum of Tolerance project, said that instructions had been given "to treat any finds with respect" and that construction work was being substantially delayed to allow the archeological excavations to proceed.

But critics of the museum project say it never would have been allowed at its current location if the cemetery were Jewish.

"They should treat our dead like they treat theirs," said Adib Kamleh, 45, one of a group of Palestinians from East Jerusalem who recently visited an area of remaining neglected tombstones near the construction site. "There can't be a double standard."

The speaker of the Israeli parliament, Reuven Rivlin, on Thursday asked acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the mayor of Jerusalem to look into the matter after receiving a complaint from the highest-ranking Muslim judge in Israel, Ahmad Natour, who asserted that the project was desecrating graves and that organizers had refused to allow any oversight of their work.

"Jewish tradition and ethics require us to treat the sensitivity of others as we would ask others to treat the dignity of the Jewish dead," Rivlin said. "It is difficult to understand how a project to glorify and strengthen tolerance is conducted with blatant intolerance."

Contacted in Los Angeles, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, said, "The matter is before the courts, and it is inappropriate for me to comment at this time."

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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.