Relevant Paragraphs from the Ruling of the Supreme Court of Israel on the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem

*_Relevant Paragraphs from the Ruling of the Supreme Court of Israel on the Museum ofTolerance Jerusalem_ (HCJ 52/06 Al-Aksa Association vs. SWC Museum Corp. et. al.)**__*

239. The importance and benefit of realizing the plan to build the Museum of Tolerance in the centreof the city of Jerusalem are very great. The Museum of Tolerance embodies an ideal of establishing a spiritual centre that will spread a message of human tolerance betweenpeoples, between sectors of the population and between man and his fellow-man.

The establishment of the museum is likely to make an important national contribution to the wholecountry, in which no centre has yet been built with the purpose of addressing the issue of tolerance in all its aspects, and to bring about the assimilation of this idea among thegeneral public.

This centre is supposed to serve as an important focus of attention both in Israel and for thecountries of the world. It is supposed to attract visitors from throughout Israel and from around the world, who will visit it and encounter the conceptual, architectural andartistic experience that it is intended to express.

The location of the museum in the centre of Jerusalem has special significance, since it is a citythat has a special ethical significance for three religions and an ancient history, which is unique to human civilization. Moreover, the existence of a Museum of Tolerance in thecapital of Israel against the background of the ongoing Israeli-Arab conflict has special weight in the context of the dynamics of dialogue and the mediation efforts between theopposing sides.

The building of the museum in the centre of the city of Jerusalem is intended to make an importantcontribution to the development of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to promote the urban development of the city centre as a municipal centre of local and nationalimportance and significance. The construction of the museum is a part of a broader development plan for the city centre, whose purpose is to rejuvenate the central area that hassuffered in recent decades from a serious economic and cultural slump. The development plan seeks to return Jerusalem to its former glory that it has lost over theyears.

240. The museum project has a special character of its own. It was planned by one of the greatestarchitects of our generation, Frank Gehry, and it constitutes an architectural and artistic work of great value in its own right. The special architecture of the building initself is likely to be a focus of attraction, like unique artistic public buildings in other cities around the world.

241. Furthering the museum plan constitutes the realization of the property rights that the projectowners bought in the area for the purpose of building the project. Considerable amounts of money, amounting to approximately 15 million dollars, have been invested so far incarrying out the project, as well as considerable human resources in the planning and preparations for realizing the project.

242. The cancellation of the plan, or the exclusion of the ‘purple area’from the scope of the plan, because of the discovery of the remains of graves on the site will cause considerable harm to the public and very significant harm to theowners of the property rights in the compound.

This would be a setback for an important public initiative, which is likely to make a contributionof special importance to the advancement and assimilation of universal human values; it would be a setback for the chance of building such a centre in Jerusalem, with all of thesymbolism inherent therein, and of thereby creating an important impetus and new spirit for renovating the status of the city as a spiritual centre for the peoples of the worldand as the capital of Israel.

The cancellation of the plan, or any harm to its integrity, would amount to a major economic setbackto the project owners, who have already invested huge sums in promoting the plan and preparing to implement it.

Cancellation of the plan or any harm to it also means a violation of the freedom of artisticexpression that is reflected in the special architecture of the building, and the aesthetic messages that it is seeking to impart.