Land authority accuses Islamic Movement of planting fake graves in Jerusalem

Land authority accuses Islamic Movement of planting fake graves in Jerusalem

Israel Lands Administration accuses Sheik Raed Salah's Islamic Movement of planting 500 fake tombstones in Jerusalem's Mamilla cemetery, withgoal of taking over the land • Inspectors find no evidence of actual graves underneath tombstones.
Daniel Siryoti

Sheikh Raed Salah in the cemetery	The ILA claims these headstones are fakes
Photo credit: Israel Lands Authority	Photo credit: Lior Mizrahi

The Israel Lands Administration claims that the Islamic Movement'snorthern branch, led by Sheik Raed Salah, has been planting fake tombstones in an ancient Muslim cemetery in central Jerusalem as part of a "land war" being waged by the organizationagainst the authority.

According to the ILA, officials sent to inspect the tombstones at theMamilla Cemetery in downtown Jerusalem were stunned to find no evidence of any graves under them. While burials have not taken place inside the cemetery for decades, senior sources atthe authority claim that new gravestones have mysteriously appeared in recent years in areas where no graves were previously documented.

The authority claims it has collected documentation over anextended period of time proving that fake graves were placed at the site with the personal involvement of Sheik Raed Salah and other members of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, whocame to the cemetery "to personally supervise the placing of additional fake graves and the maintenance of fake graves set up in the past."

The authority's communications consultant Tom Wagnertold Israel Hayom that, "Suspicions arose in 2007 that the Islamic Movement was trying to take over the cemeterywhen representatives of the Muslim public, who turned out to be movement representatives requested a permit from the Jerusalem municipality to carry out maintenance work in the cemetery.The municipality approved the permit, after which workers from the Islamic Movement arrived to clean up the area of the cemetery. However, an inspection carried out at the site of themaintenance works exposed a different reality."

"We're talking about fraud on a massive scale," Israel Scoop, whoheads the Department of Oversight and Supervision at the ILA, said. "Five hundred tombstones, custom-made from concrete and stones brought in from the Galilee, were placed in thegraveyard at a great financial investment by dozens of workers, who instead of cleaning up the place, as their permit allows, placed a huge number of fictitious tombstones there. This isa deliberate provocation through means which create the appearance of continuing burial and activity in the cemetery, with everything that entails."

Scoop continued, "In recent years, ILA inspectors have had to dealwith squatting, trespassing and illegal construction by Islamic Movement elements who are attempting to establish facts on the ground, both in the graveyards and in terms of buildingmosques on land not zoned for them."

Scoop said that after the ILA began to remove the fake tombstonesrecently, the Islamic Movement secured a court injunction halting the authority's work. Following court proceedings between the two sides, however, the injunction was cancelled andILA personnel managed to remove most of the fake tombstones, with the remainder slated to be removed soon as well.

"The Israel Lands Administration will continue to track activitiessuch as these and act according to the law in order to preserve state lands," Scoop told Israel Hayom.

Sheik Salah is currently under arrest in the U.K. for illegalentry. Responding on his behalf, the Islamic Movement said, "We do not wish to respond to the campaign of slander, defamation and lies being waged against us by the Israel LandsAdministration."

The Mamilla cemetery is a historic Muslim cemetery located just to thewest of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The cemetery, at the center of which lies the Mamilla Pool, contains the remains of figures from the early Islamic period, several Sufishrines and Mamluk-era tombs. The cemetery grounds also contain the bodies of thousands of Christians killed in the pre-Islamic era, as well several tombs from Crusader times.

In recent years it has been the focus of a controversy surrounding plans by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build its Museum of Tolerance on a site adjacent to the cemetery. In 2010, thecenter's dean, Rabbi Marvin Hier, said, "Our opponents would have you believe our bulldozers are preparing to desecrate ancient Muslim tombstones and historic markers. Let me be clear:The Museum of Tolerance is not being built on the Mamilla cemetery, but on an adjacent 3-acre site where, for half a century, hundreds of people of all faiths have parked in athree-level underground structure without any protest."

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=439