Dear All, Please sign this petition in support of a move to protect the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem from being destroyed for the construction of a “Museum of Tolerance.”

Dear All,

Please sign this petition in support of a move to protect the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem from being destroyed for the construction of a “Museum of Tolerance.” See details below. This initiative is being supported by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. One of the claimants in the case is Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi, who has family buried in the cemetery. Please forward to your lists as well.

All best, Nancy K

The Museum of Tolerance is sponsored by the Government of Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center (a Los Angleles-based, tax-exempt US organization). They have been offered alternative sites but contrary to all common sense and common decency, insist on destroying the Cemetery and build the cynically called “Museum of Tolerance” at the site. The involved Jerusalem families and their relatives worldwide have filed a petition to the United Nations Human Rights Council and other international bodies to put global challenge/pressure against this disgraceful attempt at dishonoring the people(both living and the dead) and of Muslim, Christian,Jews, and the rest of humanity of Israel/Palestine by callous disregard. On behalf of the Mamilla Campaign based in Jerusalem, Geneva and New York, we are asking as many people to become co-petitioners by signing on to this effort. The Human Rights Council will pick up this matter on or around March 22, 2010, in Geneva, so we need to act quickly to put maximum pressure in a timely fashion. Please help us by going to: www.mamillacampaign.org to sign the petition electronically. It should only take a minute of his/her time. Also, please spread the word to interested parties, potential signatories, and particularly to other listserv owners and Google, Yahoo, and Facebook Groups. ——————————————————— Here is a summary of what the petition demands: PUBLIC PETITION TO STOP DESECRATION OF MAMILLA MUSLIM CEMETERY IN JERUSALEM BY ISRAELI AUTHORITIES AND THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER

We demand that the competent Israeli authorities act:

1.To immediately halt further construction of the Simon Wiesenthal Center “Museum of Tolerance” on part of the Mamilla Cemetery site in Jerusalem;
2.To declare the entire historic site of the Mamilla Cemetery an antiquity, to be preserved and protected henceforth by its rightful and appropriate custodians, the Muslim Waqf (public endowment) authorities in Jerusalem;
3.To recover and rebury where they were originally found all human remains removed from Mamilla Cemetery, in coordination with the competent Muslim authorities in Jerusalem; and,
4.To document and reveal to families who claim their ancestors are buried in Mamilla, or to their representatives, the whereabouts of human remains and artifacts, as well as archaeological fragments and monuments exhumed in the construction.