Wiesenthal Center To Ask Israel Supreme Court For Approval On Museum

The Los-Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Center will ask Israel's Supreme Court to allow it to begin building a Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem. The Associated Press today reports that this step is being taken after seven months of court-ordered mediation between the Center and Arab groups opposing the Museum failed. (See prior related posting.) Muslim groups say the site was a cemetery. They rejected the Center's proposal to move remains to a nearby neglected Muslim cemetery and renovate it, after Palestinian families living in east Jerusalem who had relatives buried at the Museum site opposed the plan. The proposed Museum site is now a 4-floor deep parking lot and was given to the Center by the Jerusalem municipality. It has not been officially designated as a cemetery for more than 30 years, and in 1964 an Islamic court ruled that the area is no longer sanctified as a cemetery. However Durgham Saif, a lawyer for Karameh, one of the two Arab groups involved in the dispute, says that the Islamic judge who made that ruling was corrupt and was acting without due process.