Turkish news media have reports about the bulldozing today of Muslim graves in part of the Mamilla cemetery, an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem which dates back to the 12th century.
The graves are being bulldozed to make room for the ‘Museum of Tolerance’ which is being built by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
While I was looking for more information about this I came across a Fox News interview of Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in which he opposes the construction of Cordoba House near Ground Zero because
It’s a great idea, it’s the wrong location. It’s very insensitive.
For 3000 families, the 9/11 site is one of the - is the site of one of the greatest atrocities ever committed in the United States, and it’s a cemetery. And the opinion of the 3000 families should be paramount as to what should go near that site. Now having a fifteen-story mosque within 600 feet of the site is at the very least insensitive.
So as I understand it, building Cordoba House 600 feet away from Ground Zero is ‘insensitive’ but building the Museum of Tolerance on a Muslim cemetery isn’t.
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CNN Turk Link
BBC Link
Rabbi Marvin Hier’s Fox News interview can be seen here and here.
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I just learned that Lefty Coaster wrote a very nice diary, Site work for Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance desecrated Muslim cemetery, about this subject in May. If you have time please read it.