Jerusalem’s Battle of the Graves by Nadia Hijab

Jerusalem’s Battle of the Graves
by Nadia Hijab http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=2262
16 Feb 2010

I carried a handful of ashes from my father’s cremates into the
occupied Palestinian territories a few years ago, hoping to take them
to his hometown, Nablus. At the border, the only available taxi was
driven by an Israeli Moroccan Jew. Delighted I was an Arab, he
immediately plunged into conversation and pointed out various
landmarks along the way to Jerusalem.

“That road,” he said at one point, “leads to Nablus,” indicating the
tarmac cutting through the rocky soil as we drove through a desolate
area. I asked him to stop the car. Israel often kept Nablus under
curfew for weeks on end and I didn’t know if I’d be able to get there
during my short trip. On the road to Nablus, I laid the ashes and paid
my respects. Back in the car, the puzzled driver wondered what I had
been doing. When I told him he asked hesitantly, “Don’t you have rites
like ours, including visiting loved ones’ graves?”

I stared at the back of his neck, as brown as my own, as I sought a
response. We do have similar rites. It is rare for a Muslim to seek
cremation, as in our father’s case, part of the enforced modernity of
exile. In fact, at no time is the loss of Palestine more piercing than
at a loved one's passing, reinforcing the realization that, Muslim or
Christian, Palestinians are as scattered across the globe in death as
in life. But how could one explain 100 years of history in a cab ride?
“Yes, but you’ve made it impossible for us to practice ours.”

So it is with special poignancy that I have followed the latest twist
in the battle over Jerusalem’s Mamilla Cemetery, a Muslim cemetery
known in Arabic as Ma’man Allah, where the US-based Simon Wiesenthal
Centre intends to build a Museum of Tolerance, a project stalled by
legal and other protests since it began in 2004.

Mamilla is estimated to be over 800 years old and was in continuous
use until 1948 when the Western part of Jerusalem was conquered as
Israel was created. In the latest Palestinian challenge,
representatives of 60 of the oldest and most prominent Jerusalemite
families have petitioned several bodies at the United Nations to
uphold the international legal obligation to halt the project.

The battle over Mamilla encapsulates many aspects of Israel’s approach
to Palestinian rights since the conflict began, and it is worth
considering five here.

First, the use of legal garb to shroud illegal acts. In this case, for
example, Israel’s High Court ruled in favor of the museum project in
2008. However, it turned out that the Israeli Antiquities Authority
had withheld its own Chief Excavator’s conclusion that the site should
not be approved for construction. Calling the Authority’s conduct an
“archeological crime” the Chief Excavator noted, among other things,
at least four unexcavated layers of Muslim graves dating back to the
11th century. However, the court has refused to reopen the case.

Second, the over-reach. The move on Mamilla spotlights not just
Israel’s occupation of Arab East Jerusalem in 1967, but also its
original take-over of West Jerusalem. The international community
still does not accept Israeli sovereignty over West Jerusalem because
the basis for the establishment of the Israeli state -- the 1947
United Nations partition plan -- provides for a corpus separatum for
Jerusalem, as the European Community reminded Israel in 1999.

Third, the ongoing creation of facts on the ground to erase evidence
of the indigenous inhabitants. As former Israeli leader Moshe Dayan
told Technion University students back in 1969, “There is not one
place built in this country that did not have a former Arab
population.”

Fourth, the Orwellian use of language to mean the direct opposite of
what is intended: for example “tolerance” for “discrimination.”
Indeed, the plans for the Museum of Tolerance are replete with irony.
At one point, it was suggested that a horizontal barrier be built to
separate the museum and the graves to show “respect” -- a horizontal
separation of the dead comparable to Israel’s vertical separation
barriers in the West Bank and Gaza.

Fifth, the delegitimization -- not of Israel, which is a secure member
state of the UN -- but of the Zionist ideology that resulted in
Israel’s creation. These actions remind the world that one people was
displaced by another. The project architect, the renowned Frank Gehry,
has since withdrawn his plans. Further international attention to the
Mamilla case can only add to the growing global campaign to boycott
Israel until it upholds international law.

Mamilla is not just about family history but also a nation’s history,
as Dyala Husseini-Dajani -- who comes from one long-established
Jerusalem families and married into another -- told a journalist while
at the cemetery to say a prayer to her forebears. She added, “One day
I want to be buried here. And I want my grandchildren to come and say
this prayer for me.” As I read those words, I wished the Moroccan
Jewish taxi driver would read them too.


Nadia Hijab is an independent analyst and a senior fellow at the
Institute for Palestine Studies.

Copyright © 2010 Nadia Hijab – distributed by Agence Global