It is apparently built on a centuries-old Muslim grave. Yet, as this report notes, for decades, Muslims have shown absolutely no concern for this area -- until now when Israelis want to make use of it. More on this story.
"Jewish Museum of Tolerance Is Intolerable to Muslims," by Julie Stahl for CNSNews, December 5:
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) – A planned Museum of Tolerance in western Jerusalem is creating another rift between Jews and Muslims.This doesn't change the fact that, as a parking lot, Muslims had no complaints, but now that it's going to be a museum -- of "tolerance," no less -- Muslims are grieved.An American Muslim group says the museum is going up on the site of a Muslim cemetery and it wants construction stopped.
Israel’s supreme court, however, ruled that the museum is being built on land that’s been used for decades as a parking lot without complaint from Muslims.
The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a Jewish human rights group, recently won a three-year court battle to continue building its Museum of Tolerance. The $250-million facility is intended to promote “mutual respect and social responsibility,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, SWC’s founder and dean.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles has asked the SWC not to build on the site. In a letter to SWC on Thursday, CAIR-LA said, “the land on which you plan to build is the site of a Muslim cemetery, a historic landmark, and a place revered by many.”
According to historians, the planned museum site "was once the largest Muslim cemetery in Palestine," CAIR-LA said. Companions of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and Islamic jurists and scholars are said to be buried there.[...]
SWC noted on its Web site that bones found during construction of the museum were 300-400 years old and were unaccompanied by any markers, monuments, tombstone, family name or religion. (According to the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli supreme court instructed project managers to come up with a plan for removing and reburying human remains or for installing a barrier to prevent graves from being disturbed.)According to the SWC, Muslim scholars and religious leaders have ruled that a cemetery that is not in use for 37 years is considered “mundras” – an abandoned cemetery that has lost its sanctity.
But according to CAIR, “the cemetery land… was designated as 'absentee property' when West Jerusalem came under Israel's control after 1948. The land was ruled no longer sacrosanct in 1964 by a body called the 'Islamic Sharia Court,' whose members were appointed by Israel and largely distrusted by the Muslim population. In violation of international law, the land was then designated by Israel as public open space, and the municipality built a parking lot over it.”
SWC noted that Muslims themselves have either proposed or completed construction projects on cemetery grounds over the years.
For example, in 1946, the Muslim mufti of Jerusalem planned to build a Muslim university on the entire cemetery. It was never built. And during the time of the British Mandate in the 1920s, parts of the cemetery were used for “development purposes,” including the Palace Hotel compound built by the Grand Mufti himself.
“Documents prove…the existence of building plans on the area of the cemetery that were prepared with the approval of the Muslims themselves,” Israel’s Antiquities Authority says.
Israel’s supreme court ruled in October that SWC’s planning for the museum site “was performed without prior knowledge of the finding of graves at the site; that the area has not been classified as a cemetery for decades; that the plans were prepared properly without anyone expressing opposition.”
“For decades this area was not regarded as a cemetery by the general public or by the Muslim community…no one denied this position,” the court said.
Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was quoted as saying that the court decision harms Muslim holy sites.
But Hier rejected that criticism: “The opposition to the move is not motivated by religious concerns but is a political attempt at a land grab by Islamic fundamentalists,”
Hier was quoted as telling the Jerusalem Post.
One of those fundamentalists, Sheikh Raed Salah, heads the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. It was Salah, a man with ties to Hamas, who brought the case before Israel’s High Court in early 2006.
When the Israeli supreme court ruled that the museum construction could proceed, Salah called on the Arab and Muslim world to “mobilize” against the project.
"Yet, as this report notes, for decades, Muslims have shown absolutely no concern for this area -- until now when Israelis want to make use of it."
Kinda like Israel itself. Muslims didn't care about that land and let it go to seed, until Jews began to buy it up and develop it and then turned it into a Jewish state, then suddenly the Muslims cared a lot.
Tolerance is haram! Why don't you kuffars believe me? It is right there in the Qur'an!
- Abdullah Behullah, the wacky Mullah.
Muslims have no claim to Jerusalem. CAIR is banned and illegal. Neither should have any say in this whatsoever.
I seldom find myself on the side of Muslim extremists but this 1/3 of a billion dollar museum of tolerance seems a monument to touchy-feely talking head empty-headed pious frauds and the numerous over-degreed Boards of Directors usually associated with such pufferies and abstractions.
Considering that Holocaust Part Two is closing in on all sides NOW NOW NOW. It is Theater of the Absurd.
I agree with jdamn -- Muslims need to butt out of this -- and the other four fifths of the world!
To Muslims everything non Muslim is intolerable. With the lies, deceit and obvious manipulation by Muslims, it has led to wide spread confusion and nonplussed reaction from the Non Muslim world on how to contain, mold and ultimately control Islamic ideology with a firm grip. Regrettably this attitude has led to and continues to lead to the slaughter of non Muslims.
I personally hold all those who are apologists of Islam and the so called Muslim experts in the west, with their ridiculous theories and convoluted logic, theories etc, about the violence promulgated by Muslims are guilty of crimes against humanity at the highest degree. It is pretty disgusting and sick!
savsiv...I have to agree with you. These people know full well the dangers and realities of Islam, but they have no problem looking you in the eye and saying 'Islam is the religion of peace'.
They get not one iota of respect from me.
I respect a Mohammadan who wants to kill me more than a Kufr who wants to BS me...At least the Mohammadan is honest in his dishonesty...
Denver Rodeo wrote:
"Yet, as this report notes, for decades, Muslims have shown absolutely no concern for this area -- until now when Israelis want to make use of it."
Kinda like Israel itself. Muslims didn't care about that land and let it go to seed, until Jews began to buy it up and develop it and then turned it into a Jewish state, then suddenly the Muslims cared a lot.
...................
Denver, exactly what I was going to note. This is like the "conflict" over Israel itself, writ small. And so now, even if the museum is built, Muslims will always have a reason to reject "tolerance"--I mean, yet another reason.
As with Israel--Palestine had fallen into almost complete neglect--all but ignored by the Ottoman Empire--but after Jews showed an interest it suddenly became the site of the "furthest Mosque" and "the third holiest site in Islam"--a claim seldom made prior to the Mandate for Palestine.
In the same way, this undistinguished parking lot suddenly becomes "a historic landmark, and a place revered by many.” and "the largest Muslim cemetery in Palestine...companions of Islam's Prophet Muhammad and Islamic jurists and scholars are said to be buried there."
Amazing how this works, isn't it?
Is there even any reason to believe that those bones aren't Christian or Jewish?
Muslims desecrate Christian cemeteries everywhere, breaking headstones, vandalizing statues, and other unsavory activities too disgusting to mention. Saudi Arabia has no regard whatsoever for historical monuments, with its paranoia about idol worship or in reality, its morbid fear of the discovery of archaeological evidence that would refute islam and its revised version of history. Anyone can see through the shallow protestations of the Palestinian muslims but I doubt if this will die before the Israelis are again condemned for their crimes against humanity or some such crap. Muslims live to whine and kill; don't they ever go on vacation? IF they do, it's probably to an islamic conference on jihad, terrorism, and world domination in sunny Florida.
CAIR's involvement in this issue is interesting but with its ties to HAMAS and the muslim brotherhood, it makes sense. CAIR is supposed to represent American muslims not Palestinian muslims so once again they show their true agenda, which will be ignored, as always, by our gutless leaders.
Nice of CAIR to stick its nose into an issue that should not be remotely of concern to it. As always, loyalty to ummah comes above all else. And I agree with all of the above posters-these clowns are indeed something-let a Jew express interest in something and watch the formerly disinterested Koranists scream to Illah that it mustn't happen, be it an inactive cemetary or a nation.
Got news for you all ..... When the Jewish museum was being built in NYC, I already heard some complaints from Muslims and some threats of destruction.
Nothing new under the sun.
"Jewish Museum of Tolerance Is Intolerable to Muslims"
-- Headline
Ironic, but not surprising. It will undoubtedly require stomaching a lot of abuse, but I hope the SWC perseveres with this. Perhaps they find this to be a deliciously irresistable way of baiting the Muslims into a new round of righteous rage, knowing full well they have no self-control and will be unable to resist taking the bait.
Now if they could only find an angle to make al-Aqsa into a parking lot...
Everything Jewish is intolerable to mohammedans.
At least sufficiently so to make the news every time something notable happens with Jews.
Screw mohammedan intolerance. They don't accept anything.
Good for the Israelis! But why "Tolerance?" They should build another Holocaust museum for the other part of the Holocaust, the Christians and rebels and Gypsies that were systematically murdered in WWII..
When they had it between 1948 and 1967, the Palestinians used the Western Wall as a garbage dump. One historic synagogue (of the few still left standing, that is) in the Old City of Jerusalem was used to shelter goats and sheep.
If they actually had any respect for other religions, I might be inlined to pay attention to what these Muslims claim. Israelis want to build a museum of Tolerance on this land. The Muslim population doesn't deserve to be treated this way. I propose instead that a medical clinic should be built --specializing in gender reassignment surgery.
That'll teach 'em!
I thought CAIR didn't exist anymore.