About three years ago, former High Court of Justice President Dorit Beinish scrapped a building plan for Jerusalem’s Ancient Muslim Cemetery in response to opposition from the international Muslim community. According to Maariv and other sources, this does not seem to be a deterrent for the Eden Company, which is working with city hall, planning a hotel for that location.

The original plan, the one scrapped, was to build a judicial complex that would include all of the Jerusalem courts in a single complex. This would have included the Jerusalem Magistrate, District, Traffic and Labor Courts.

That project was already budgeted in Jerusalem City Hall, but now the plan focuses on a hotel, not a judicial complex. Interestingly, the original plan was already in the works and groundbreaking was well underway when the court halted the program. Nevertheless, Eden and Jerusalem City Hall seem to believe they will succeed where others failed.

It is also important to point out that the Experimental School on the plot of land is to be relocated and as the groundbreaking was in the early stages, Israel Antiquities Authority officials found what they believed were ancient graves under the school’s sport field. This led to court petitions, mounting international pressure and the halting of the original program.

Today, City Hall has allocated 200,000 NIS for architectural and surveying plans, which may include a portion of nearby Independence Park. Officials add that in the Experimental School there have been skeletal remains found which are believed to have been from the Mamilla Cemetery. The ancient cemetery also led to voices of opposition regarding the planned Museum of Tolerance at that location.

It would appear the excuses used in the past, “We didn’t know” will not work this time around and it remains to be seen how Eden and the Jerusalem Municipality plan to sell the hotel plan which will without a doubt result in disturbing the remains of the ancient cemetery.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)