Jerusalem digs up muslim cemetary to build tolerance museum

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For the last 40 years Mohammed Hamdi Bader has left his tailor's shop in the Old City once a month and taken a short walk to the heart of west Jerusalem where he prayed close to his grandfather's grave.

But the 49-year-old Palestinian father-of-five can no longer reach the grave and he's furious about it.

The Maamam Allah cemetery, which is at least 1,000 years old, has become a building site.
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre is constructing a Museum of Tolerance on the cemetery. The centre says the museum will seek to promote "unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths".



The project has raised the ire of the Muslim community in the city. There have been accusations that exhumed remains have been damaged.

Despite a temporary injunction on work at the site issued by the Islamic Court - a division of the Israeli justice system - Israeli archaeologists and developers have continued excavating remains at the cemetery, says Durgham Saif, a Palestinian lawyer.

'Absurd'

On Wednesday Mr Saif took the case to the Israeli Supreme Court in the hope of strengthening the Islamic Court's injunction. The supreme court's verdict is still pending.
Standing in his tailor's shop beside an old hoarding advertising "London styles", with drawings of men in suits, raincoats and bowler hats from the 1930s, Mr Bader says he thinks a museum of tolerance is a good idea.



"But you can't build this museum on any graveyard, regardless of religion," he adds.

The discovery of human remains on building sites in this part of the world is highly sensitive, for both Jews and Muslims.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Ekrema Sabri, says that Muslim religious authorities were not consulted about digging at the site.

Sitting in his office in the al-Aqsa Mosque, the mufti also says that the museum's claim to promote tolerance is absurd.

"How can a museum carrying the name of tolerance be built on a graveyard?"

Smashed skull
Durgham Saif, the lawyer who brought the Islamic petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, says that bones have already been removed to boxes and that one skull has been smashed.

But Charles Levine, spokesman for the new museum, accused Palestinian and Muslim groups of exploiting the issue for political gain.


"Why didn't they protest when the car park was built?" asks Mr Levine, referring to the part of the cemetery converted into a car park 20 years ago and now part of the site for the museum.

"Wherever you dig in Jerusalem you are going to find graves and archaeological sites. We are fully committed to resolving this issue in a respectful manner."

Heavily guarded

Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ehud Olmert, now acting Israeli Prime Minister, attended a ceremony in 2004 to lay the Museum of Tolerance's foundation stone.

Plans for the $150m museum, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, include a theatre complex, a conference hall, an education centre and a library.

It is expected to be completed in 2009.

For now, the cemetery is patrolled by security guards and is surrounded by a four-metre-high metal fence and razor wire.

Through the cracks of the padlocked gates, you can see diggers and bulldozers. White tents, housing skeletal remains, are also visible.
Inside one of these white tents, Mr Bader says, lie the mortal remains of his grandfather.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4721336.stm

While the suggestion that "Wherever you dig in Jerusalem you are going to find graves and archaeological sites." is likely true, I think there is a significant distinction between stumbling on graves and actually digging up graves that people know exist and that people still visit, as is the case here. But my issue is not so much the digging up of graves, I don't encourage it but it's not a major issue for me usually (a few exceptions). The issue here is that a museum dedicated to tolerance, to building unity and respect between jews and other religions, is the reason for the digging up of the cemetary. It seems ridiculous.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']They're dead, what difference does it make?

"Golf courses and cemetaries, biggest wastes of prime real estate." -Al Czervik[/QUOTE]

Well, cemetaries are very important to people. It would be like somebody demolishing the vatican. I don't personally find it meaningful or useful, and perhaps I even find it wasteful, but you have to take into account the views of others. But my issue is not so much the removal of the cemetary (though the care it is being done with seems questionable), but the removal of a cemetary to be replaced with something that is supposed to unite people and result in greater respect among different peoples. How is digging up a cemetary, one that belongs to people you are trying to build mutual respect with, representative of that?

Also while they're dead their relatives are not. One relative who used to regularly visit his grandfather in the cemetary is quoted in the article.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']Also while they're dead their relatives are not. One relative who used to regularly visit his grandfather in the cemetary is quoted in the article.[/QUOTE]

Then he and everyone else should stop worshiping graven images and other objects of idolatry. If Allah is all that matters and their relatives are in heaven with the almighty, why should anyone care about dusty bones? They shouldn't if they are not hypocrites.

That being said, if it were a jewish cemetary being razed, the jews would go apeshit.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']They're dead, what difference does it make?[/QUOTE]

Spoken like a true necrophiliac.
 
The Vatican is a soverign city state with fully recognized diplomatic missions in addition to being the center of Catholicism. It's hardly eqivilent to a cemetary considering it is, you know, an entire country.

Of course people like you though don't care about religion unless it suits your political opposition. So while you would never recommend bulldozing Mecca for a museum you would say it's okay to mention that for the Vatican.

I mean Mecca isn't even a country. It's a dusty trading city that's home to a black meteorite worshipped by idolaters.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']The Vatican is a soverign city state with fully recognized diplomatic missions in addition to being the center of Catholicism. It's hardly eqivilent to a cemetary considering it is, you know, an entire country.

Of course people like you though don't care about religion unless it suits your political opposition. So while you would never recommend bulldozing Mecca for a museum you would say it's okay to mention that for the Vatican.

I mean Mecca isn't even a country. It's a dusty trading city that's home to a black meteorite worshipped by idolaters.[/QUOTE]

I was using that as an example of not being personally concerned but respecting others, which is how I view cemetaries. Though you did your argument a disservice by apparently suggesting the vatican is more significant than mecca.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Nations are always more significant than cities....

Duh.[/QUOTE]
The vatican/holy see is the most worthless state in the world. It has no industry. Its economy is suported simply by donations made by catholics. It imports all electricity. Most likely imports water.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Nations are always more significant than cities....

Duh.[/QUOTE]

In what sense?

Population-mecca
current political power-vatican (assuming it's direct)
current cultural signficance-mecca
religious importance to followers- mecca
religious importance to the most people- mecca

Also, what's more significant, san marino or new york city?
 
[quote name='kakomu']The vatican/holy see is the most worthless state in the world. It has no industry. Its economy is suported simply by donations made by catholics. It imports all electricity. Most likely imports water.[/QUOTE]

Actually, monetarily, the vatican is the largest depository of artistic treasures in the world. I'd hardly say that it was worthless. Maybe in logic or moral bankruptcy, but not in priceless art treasures and antiquities.
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Actually, monetarily, the vatican is the largest depository of artistic treasures in the world. I'd hardly say that it was worthless. Maybe in logic or moral bankruptcy, but not in priceless art treasures and antiquities.[/QUOTE]
Same can be said about Mecca (just replace priceless art treasure with priceless religious sentimentality). I think we can both agree that the Vatican and Mecca are equally worthless :lol:
 
[quote name='bmulligan']Actually, monetarily, the vatican is the largest depository of artistic treasures in the world. I'd hardly say that it was worthless. Maybe in logic or moral bankruptcy, but not in priceless art treasures and antiquities.[/QUOTE]

Except why do you think the art is valuable? Paintings are just paint slapped on a canvas - there's nothing inherently valuable about them. They only have worth because people place emotional value on paint that's applied in certain patterns. Apply the paint wrong and you've produced trash. Apply it 'right' (where-in right varies over time and even from person-to-person) and you have a masterpiece. Either way, the value is determined by illogical human emotions - rather like some people prefer to not have their grandfather dug up.
 
[quote name='Drocket']Except why do you think the art is valuable? Paintings are just paint slapped on a canvas - there's nothing inherently valuable about them. They only have worth because people place emotional value on paint that's applied in certain patterns. Apply the paint wrong and you've produced trash. Apply it 'right' (where-in right varies over time and even from person-to-person) and you have a masterpiece. Either way, the value is determined by illogical human emotions - rather like some people prefer to not have their grandfather dug up.[/QUOTE]

You could say the same think about a hundred dollar bill. Money is also an abstraction. Nothing in that small piece of green paper is inherrently valuable, except for the fact that people place an emotional value and faith that it can actually be traded for something else of value.
 
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