[LINK] "Simon Weisenthal Centre to build ‘tolerance museum’ on Arab graveyard"

[rfmcdonald]

The news, of course, is drenched in irony. Certainly this fits with the pattern of Jewish/Israeli nationalists' refusal to recognize that other people were living in the southwestern Levant--people who, say, lived and died and buried their ancestors with greater ceremony--before the late 19th century beginning of the Zionist project.

The tombs are crumbling and overturned in the ancient Muslim cemetery of Mamilla but they do not mean any less to those whose relatives are buried here.

Dyala Husseini-Dajani and her husband, who belong to two of the oldest Arab families in Jerusalem, point to the areas where their ancestors are buried. Soon, she fears, there will be nothing left of the burial plot — established in the centre of Jerusalem more than 400 years ago — as the entire area is earmarked for demolition to make way for a new “Museum of Tolerance”, a £160 million complex sponsored by the US-based Simon Weisenthal Centre. “How can they not see the irony of this so-called Museum of Tolerance?” Mrs Husseini-Dajani asked.

She has joined 60 other members of longstanding Jerusalem families whose ancestors are buried there to sign a petition to the UN Special Rapporteur’s office on freedom of religion. They want the UN to put pressure on Israel to stop construction there.

“What the UN can do is limited but they can investigate and raise awareness,” said Diana Buttu, a lawyer involved with the petition. “We have exhausted all our other legal means.”

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Weisenthal Centre, has defended the decision to build the museum, stating that the complex will promote coexistence. “All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of the site,” he said.

Palestinians claim that the project is a land grab, aimed at destroying evidence of Arab claims to west Jerusalem. “This is my history, my family, everything,” said Mrs Husseini-Dajani. “If they are serious about this project being tolerance they would have approached us with their plans, and had a discussion. But they did not show us even this respect.”

Yes, this is a "clash of ideologies" post. Isn't the tag tailored for this sort of news item?