Bones halt plans for tolerance museum - World - Times Online

Bones halt plans for tolerance museum - World - Times Online

Bones halt plans for tolerance museum
By Ian MacKinnon
A project promoting harmony is being built on Muslim graves

THE groundwork for a £120 million Museum of Tolerance in the heart of Jerusalem has thrown up a problem: the bones of the dead.

Not just any skeletons. The site for the fêted museum is partly on an ancient Muslim cemetery that Arabs say contains not only the remains of their grandparents, but also associates of the Prophet Muhammad from the 7th century. Work on the complex, hailed as a testament to “human dignity”, was halted amid court actions and bitter recriminations in the 3,000-year-old city where three faiths collide.

The Supreme Court of Israel ordered a 30-day stay on construction by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre and appointed a former Chief Justice as mediator.

He will meet the warring parties for the first time tomorrow in a bid to resolve the conflict over the museum, whose goal is promoting harmony between ethnic groups and religions.

Representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre say that they will be bound by the mediator’s ruling but are confident that it will go in their favour.

Lawyers acting for an Islamic human rights group and three old Jerusalem Arab families, whose relatives lie in the cemetery, are outraged. They are adamant the “desecration” must cease, skeletons already removed be replaced and the museum be re-sited.

“What kind of ‘tolerance’ is it when you want to build on a site where you desecrate our Muslim graves,” said Mohammad Bader al-Zein, 49, one of those who brought the court case.

“Breaking the bones of the dead is like breaking the bones of the living. This museum must go somewhere far from the cemetery.”

The ancestors of Mr Bader al-Zein, a tailor in the Old City, lie in the modern cemetery next to the site. He says he is barred access to their graves.

Solicitors for the US centre produced documents from the Muslim Waqf trust in Jerusalem, declaring in 1964 that the ancient burial ground was no longer sacred.

The Centre for Human Dignity — Museum of Tolerance was scheduled for completion in 2009. But after 10 skeletons were found, the court case was started amid Muslim protests.

The centre offered to rebury the bones, construct a monument to the ancient cemetery and refurbish neglected modern Muslim graves. Durgham Saif, lawyer for the Muslim families, said that it was not legal to build on graves: “This plan isn’t tolerance. It would be ironic if it wasn’t so serious.”