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Page 2 of 2 A former Israeli ambassador to Egypt and Jordan, Shimon Shamir, said he met with Gehry in Los Angeles two years ago in a bid to persuade him to withdraw. “I explained what a big mistake it was,” Shamir said to Tablet by phone from Tel Aviv. “I hope it will never be built.” While there are many who oppose the museum, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are among the many supporters of the Museum of Tolerance-Jerusalem. The proposal received the blessing of Rabbi David Schmidl, head of the ultra-Orthodox Atra Kadisha organization, which fights against the desecration of Jewish graves, according to Haaretz.com. Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s mayor, has also given the project his full support. “I don’t see any problem with the site, it’s a non-issue,” he said in an interview last August. Public authorities also gave the project all the necessary construction permits, according to Tablet. Regardless, those opposed continue to take measures to see that the museum is not built. Muslim and Jewish leaders from various Southern California organizations sent a letter in 2008 to the Wiesenthal Center stating that if the Museum of Tolerance were to be built upon the cemetery it would, "unlike the admirable goal of furthering tolerance and understand, will only add to the existing pain and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis, irreversibly damage relations between Muslims and Jews worldwide and sow new feelings of animosity and division for generations to come..." The letter was co-signed by Ayloush, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs of Progressive Faith Foundation, Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace, and Rabbi Haim Beliak of Ha Mifgash. Hier disagreed. “Greater peacemaking will come from a Museum of Tolerance on the site than from a car park,” Hier told IFN during an interview in 2008. Hier argues that the museum’s construction site is actually a parking lot that was confused as a cemetery. “We are not building on the Mamilla Cemetery; we are only building on Jerusalem’s car park,” Hier said. “Many critics were misled by the photographs taken of Shaikh Raed Salah praying at a Muslim tombstone at the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery.” In an e-mail to IFN in 2008, Hier attributed the confusion to Salah, who petitioned the Supreme Court against the museum, and has done this on dozens of other sites in Israel. Rabbi Beliak, on the other hand, said he has felt for a very long time that the place for this project was inappropriate. “Anybody with the slightest sense of knowledge about the history of ongoing conflict in that area with a concern for developing good relations must realize that this is a disrespectful thing,” he said. “It counteracts any hopes and aspirations for peace.” Some agreed and even called the notion ironic. Deriving from the name “Ma’man Allah” or “Sanctuary of God,” Mamilla cemetery is one of the largest Muslim cemeteries in Palestine, and according to some historians, perhaps even the oldest in Jerusalem. Work on the site was immediately halted in 2005 after an archeology inspector from the Antiquities Authority detected signs of Muslim remains at a section of the site during a routine inspection. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post a year later, Israel Antiquities Authority spokeswoman Osnat Gouez said the authority unearthed some 250 skeletons from the site and said that the cemetery possesses “at least five layers of density of graves.” Gehry was contacted by IFN but has not yet responded.
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