Jerusalem "tolerance" museum to be built on top of Muslim graves

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-tol24.html

Tolerance museum sparks furor

JERUSALEM -- The Museum of Tolerance started off with good intentions, more than $100 million in donations, an eye-catching design by architect Frank Gehry, a 2004 kickoff ceremony attended by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a great piece of Jerusalem real estate.

But underneath that real estate, it turned out, there were Muslim graves. As a result, instead of bringing this contentious city's warring groups together, the museum has sparked a fight with political, religious and historical dimensions between Muslims and Jews -- and all this before it has even been built. snip

The museum was conceived by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a nonprofit Jewish human rights group based in Los Angeles. Its purpose was to promote coexistence in a city holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians and claimed by Israelis and Palestinians as a capital.

The Jerusalem municipality gave the Wiesenthal Center a municipal parking lot in central Jerusalem on which to build the museum.

But in Jerusalem, a parking lot is rarely just a parking lot. Before it was turned into a four-story underground garage in the 1970s, the land had been a small part of a sprawling Muslim cemetery.

The cemetery fell out of use after the creation of Israel in 1948, but many of its graves are still visible, crumbling among trees in what has become the heart of the Jewish side of the city. Part of the cemetery is now known as Independence Park. Another part had been sold in the 1930s, at the initiative of the top Muslim clergyman of Jerusalem, to become the renowned Palace Hotel.

[EarthNeedsHope]

1. This will not end well

...

[Igel]

2. Not this again.

The story got reasonable airplay here a year or so ago.

They move graveyards; only when non-Muslims do it is it a big deal.

[partylessinOhio]

3. "many of its graves are still visible, crumbling among trees"

No respect. You reap what you sow.

[Igel]

4. I actually found this to be ambiguous.

Different parts have been built on at different times, and some parts haven't been built on (IIRC, unless you consider a park 'built').

The part you quote merely allows people to read into it what they want, with Gricean maxim pertaining to relevance leading people to assume that since the information above is given, and the topic is the center, therefore the graves must be located on the ground the center will be built on. But it doesn't say that. It leaves open the possibility the graves aren't going to be disturbed; but it doesn't say that, either.

In any event, how many trees do you find in a four-storey underground parking structure or in the lobby of a hotel?

[JVS]

5. !

:rofl: