by John Taylor, Antiwar.com, 31 March 2010
Rabbi Marvin Hier’s Los Angeles-based Museum of Tolerance, part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is building a $150 million branch in Jerusalem. The Museum, whose mission is confronting “global anti-Semitism, extremism, hate … and promoting unity and respect among Jews and people of all faiths,” is being built atop part of the Mamilla Muslim cemetery, some of whose burials date to the 11th century. The graves, which may contain the remains of soldiers who fought with Saladin against the Crusaders, are being uprooted to make way for Rabbi Hier’s new museum.
More than a few commentators, including a number of Israelis and some of Israel’s friends in this country, have argued strongly that a Museum of Tolerance built literally upon the bones of Palestine’s indigenous Arab population is hypocritical, intolerant, and wholly absurd. A case could be made, however, that tearing out centuries-old Muslim graves and replacing them with an American-financed Museum of Tolerance symbolizes Zionist policy and practice toward the Palestinians from the birth of modern political Zionism a century ago down to the present day. It also exemplifies America’s role as an enabler of Israeli ethnic cleansing.
The Holocaust taught Hier nothing and therefor he has nothing to teach us.