The Ma’man Allah (Mamilla) Cemetery was the oldest Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem with graves dating back to the seventh century, comprised of 33 acres and tens of thousands of graves. After 1948 the Israeli ministry that maintained the site reassured world leaders that this important religious site would be cared for in perpetuity.
Less than fifteen years later, in the 1960s a park was built in part of the cemetery and a parking lot covered another part. These were followed by a school, football field, underground parking garage, and road. Electrical wires were laid in other sections.
The final few acres were dug up just before the beginning of Ramadan, in the middle of the night (as can be seen on the CNN video) so that Israel can build the Museum of Tolerance in conjunction with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the United States.
An enormous amount of knowledge was lost with the destruction of the Mamilla Cemetery, according to St. Paul based archaeologist, John E. Landgraf, Ph.D., because the era since the end of the Byzantine period and the beginning of the Islamic conquest (around 638 CE) up to the present day is the least known period of history in the Middle East generally. There is much to be learned by examining skeletal remains, headstones, and tombs. However, the Israeli Department of Antiquities, which has recently been taken over by the Orthodox Rabbinate, does not allow any human skeletal remains to be examined; Jewish remains must be re-interred as quickly as possible out of respect, whereas non-Jewish remains at the Mamilla Cemetery were disposed of along with tombstones and other debris in construction dumpsters.
Dr. Landgraf, who participated in a number of archaeological digs in Israel and the West Bank between 1965 and 1980, said that the Israeli Department of Antiquities was seldom interested in the preservation of remains or artifacts from the Islamic period. In the late 1960s the discovery of Muslim graves at Tell Gezer did not interest the American head archaeologist at the time, and so bulldozers were used to push remains, artifacts, and debris back into the graves.
Archaeological excavations are a way of learning about the past in an orderly fashion. One exposes history a layer at a time, and by careful examination knowledge can be gained of the various eras and cultures. When Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 Israeli archaeologists used bulldozers to excavate the Western (Wailing) Wall area down to the late Roman period, destroying the homes of Palestinians living there at the time, and along with them the 1500-year history of the people who had lived there since the Byzantine period. “Thus there is a loss of continuity in our understanding of the past,” said Dr. Landgraf.
It is ironic that in the midst of mass hysteria over an Islamic center to be built in lower Manhattan, because some people feel that this would be disrespectful to the dead, that a genuine desecration of a sacred place occurs, unreported in most mainstream media. “The unfortunate reality is that Indigenous populations live in a world in which we are never safe from colonizer assaults even when we are dead,” says Wazayatawin, Ph.D., Indigenous Peoples Research Chair and Associate Professor, Indigenous Governance Program, University of Victoria, someone who has worked on behalf of Indigenous peoples in this hemisphere for many years, and sees many parallels with the experience of Palestinians. “The ongoing desecration of Indigenous burial sites, including the Mamilla Cemetery in West Jerusalem, reflects a deeply embedded colonizer mentality that views subjugated peoples as fundamentally inferior and unworthy of even the most basic dignities afforded other human beings,” she says.
Dr. Wazayatawin continues, “The act of erasing a people’s memory from the landscape is a necessary element in the colonization process. In order for the colonizers to legitimize their occupation of another’s land, they must eradicate all memories of the colonized, including even the human remains that demonstrate a deep and powerful connection to the land itself.”
Everywhere in Israel are the eradicated memories of the dispossessed Indigenous people. Old mosques are transformed into bars and nightclubs, so that patrons drink alcohol where Muslims used to pray. The history museum in Jaffa (more of a tourist site than an educational institution) is inexplicably silent about the existence of people in the city between the Roman times and Napoleon’s invasion. Street names are changed from their ancient Arabic names to new Hebrew ones. Golda Meir’s famous comment “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” reflected her desire, not a reality, but it has been repeated so often that many Israelis believe it. The destruction of a cemetery shows starkly how little regard Israel holds for the humanity of the Palestinians. As Dr. Wazayatawin says, “There is something terribly wrong with a culture that digs up the dead of others. The societal justification for such a crime reveals its own sickness.”
I am an American Jew who began to question Zionism in 1982 after the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon. After reading everything I could on the Israel and Palestine I realized I could no longer remain passive on this issue while Palestinians suffered from Israeli human rights abuses and international law violations. I am actively involved in the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), in a state-wide campaign to get our state to divest from State of Israel bonds, and in other Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns. As I write this in June 2010 there are reasons for optimism as well as pessimism. Pessimism because the repression experienced by Palestinians increases daily. Optimism because the increasing repression is a result of the work that we are doing. I believe we will end Israeli Apartheid in my life time. This issue is all-consuming for me, and so I suppose it’s not horrible that I was laid off from my waste water design engineering job in February 2009 and have been unemployed since.
Here is the Promotion for the “Museum of Tolerance”
Goldstone Facts has produced clips of Ken Loach, Arundhati Roy and Mairead Maguire reading from the Goldstone Report which was defamed by supporters of Israel’s 2008-09 war on Gaza and mostly forgotten by everyone else. Meanwhile the people of Gaza, and Gaza’s children in particular (almost half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 15), continue to suffer under Israel’s continued illegal siege. (Catch Roy and Maguire after the jump).
Journalist Lauren Booth was on the first Free Gaza voyage and stayed to work in Gaza after the boats left. Her heartfelt letter to the people of Israel should be read by everyone who hopes for peace in the Middle East. This stunning video tribute to her words was designed and produced by the Free Gaza movement.
There is ample evidence, from both witnesses and recordings, of explosions associated with the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7). NIST sidestepped investigating explosions and explosives by setting up an artificially high threshold of interest. They swept aside any testimony or recordings of explosions that would not register 130-140 dB one kilometer away. They established this criterion using RDX (one of the loudest explosives) in a scenario that produced a far higher sound level than other possible uses of explosives to bring down the building. Then they turned around and used sound level as the sole criterion for deciding whether the use of explosives was a credible hypothesis. By this maneuver, they sidestepped investigating the testimony of explosives or possible evidence of explosive residues. This is just one more instance of fraudulent behavior on the part of the NIST investigation of the World Trade Center disaster.
On the evening of 9/11 the wheels of war were beginning to turn. The talking points were ready, the media was in on the game and the ‘official’ story was beginning to take shape.
The BBC was told who to interview. Those who were the architects of the event in some way or another were prepared to step into the propaganda matrix.
A couple of PNAC members, Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney and perhaps one of the leading planners, Israel’s own Ehud Barak, were tasked to mold pubic perception. It was all lies.
Does Hillary Clinton’s speech on US global leadership mean a return of American exceptionalism? Jake Diliberto of Rethink Afghanistan said the speech is merely rhetoric, similar to that used in the past by the Bush administration. He argued that the speech sends the message that the US State Department wants to transform the world into the American image. He said it is ok to be a world leader, but not if leadership means dominance.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke today on the Obama administration’s vision of American global leadership in the 21st century. She said that the US has the reach, resources and resolve to mobilize in order to solve global problems and that the world counts on the US to do so. Citing international sanctions on Iran and the US’s reset with Russia she argues that the US model of global leadership is producing results. But is it also producing an expansion of American exceptionalism? RT contributor Webster Tarpley says the speech is a systematic attempt to deny reality, arguing that the US model has not been successful. He said the speech was unilateralism in disguise. “It’s a rhetoric that obviously grates very much because of the arrogance, the complacency, the hypocrisy, the double standard,” adds Tarpley.
Historian Ilan Pappe of Exeter University discusses the people and ideology behind the crimes of the war of 1948, which he describes as the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This speech was given at the Al-Awda Convention in 2008.
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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