Thursday, November 6, 2008

Travesty of Tolerance on Display in Jerusalem

Museum lays waste to ancient Muslim cemetery

by Jonathan Cook

"Israel seems to have little time for the irony that a modern Jewish shrine to "coexistence and tolerance" is being built on the graves of the city's Muslim forefathers.

The Israeli Supreme Court's approval last week of the building of a Jewish Museum of Tolerance over an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is the latest in a series of legal and physical assaults on Islamic holy places since Israel's founding in 1948.....

What makes the latest fight over the Mamilla cemetery different is that in the past decade a new breed of Muslim leader has emerged in Israel to overshadow the Islamic trusts. In particular the struggle over the fate of the holy places has been taken up by the leader of the Islamic Movement inside Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah.

Last week he warned: "We will mobilize in the Arab and Muslim world so that it puts pressure to halt the project."

Tolerance, after all, has its limits."

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