JERUSALEM // Israeli authorities are pressing ahead with plans to build a courthouse complex on a large historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem that is already at the centre of protest over plans to locate a museum there.
The proposed courthouse is expected to provoke stiff opposition, especially from Islamic groups, after it was revealed that an excavation last year for the Museum of Tolerance, close by, unearthed as many as 1,500 Muslim graves.
Dorit Beinisch, the president of the Supreme Court, who last year expressed reservations about the location of the new courthouse, is reported to have lifted her objections recently. According to Meir Margalit, a Jerusalem city councillor, municipal officials said they had assured the judge that no graves had been discovered at the new site during excavations.
However, a spokeswoman for the Israeli antiquities authority, which is responsible for carrying out such digs, said in an interview that ancient graves were found at the proposed courthouse site when a trial excavation was conducted two years ago, and that the discovery was reported to the government.
Archaeologists and Islamic groups point out that the courts were similarly misled when they approved the museum project in 2008, after they had been promised that only "a few dozen graves" would be found at the site, not many hundreds.
"The municipality and government simply can't be trusted on this issue as has been amply demonstrated over the Museum of Tolerance plans," Mr Margalit said. "They have a history of not acting in good faith."
The courthouse plan is certain to revive a long-running controversy over what Muslim organisations have called Israel's "desecration" of the Mamilla cemetery, which lies just outside Jerusalem's Old City walls. The graveyard dates back 1,000 years and, according to Islamic tradition, includes the resting places of the Prophet Mohammed's companions and tens of thousands of Saladin's warriors.
Plans for a Museum of Tolerance, unveiled in 2004 by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a US Jewish group that has built a similar museum in Los Angeles, provoked a row that has yet to abate.
Palestinian families whose relatives are buried in Mamilla and the Islamic Movement, the main group representing religious Muslims in Israel, lost their legal battle against the museum in the Supreme Court in October 2008.
But they are to revive their legal action after an investigation by the liberal Haaretz newspaper last month revealed major irregularities in a dig to prepare the site for the museum's construction. The groups also believe the investigation provides them with ammunition against the courthouse plan.
According to Haaretz, the antiquities authority oversaw a five-month excavation last year at the museum site that was carried out in record time as three teams did shifts around the clock amid great secrecy to excavate graves and rebury the remains nearby.
No Palestinians were employed, and all workers had to sign a confidentiality agreement. They were searched for any electronic devices, including phones, before entering the site, were not allowed to leave during their shift, and were watched at all times by security cameras.
The measures, the Haaretz report suggested, were designed to ensure that no word leaked out about the large number of graves found there or that promises to the courts about treating the graves with the utmost respect were being violated.
Workers told the paper that, faced with a large number of graves exposed in five layers down to the bedrock, Israeli officials cut corners and hurriedly dug out ancient skulls and bones, some of which disintegrated in the process.
The paper published photographs appearing to show that remains had been stuffed into cardboard boxes rather than removed using advanced techniques the antiquities authority had proposed.Gideon Sulimani, a senior archaeologist with the antiquities authority who carried out initial excavations, told Haaretz: "They call this an archaeological excavation but it's really a clearing-out, an erasure of the Muslim past. It is actually Jews against Arabs."
Rafi Greenberg, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, was also critical. "In another country, they would devote years to such an excavation, and also build a special lab to analyse the results." He accused the antiquities authority of betraying its role as the guardian of the country's historical assets.
Haaretz's investigation has worried observers that similar deceptions may be employed in the case of the courthouse.
Kais Nasser, a lawyer for seven Palestinian families and for an Islamic charity opposed to the museum project, said he would petition the courts to reverse the museum ruling and ask them to block the courthouse plans.
"The graves have already been removed, but we hope to persuade the courts to order that the remains be returned and this uniquely important site rehabilitated," he said.
"Be sure that, if the courthouse goes ahead, as many graves will need to be removed as the 1,500 that were unearthed for the museum."
A new courthouse in Jerusalem has been under consideration for at least a decade, Mr Margalit said, but it had been difficult to find a large enough site in such a crowded city. A spokesman for the municipality termed the new court complex "a strategic project to strengthen the centre of the city".
A school is currently on the site proposed for the courthouse, close to an area known as Independence Park. Mr Margalit said the authorities may have found graves when they dug the school's foundations in the 1970s and kept the information secret.
Prof Greenberg said claims that there were no graves under or close to the school were "ridiculous".
He added that at both sites there was a wealth of other important antiquities that were being ignored or destroyed by the current excavations. He said they included an Iron Age house, an aqueduct and a dam built across what was once a valley.
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Emirates exiles
Will Wilson is not the first player to have attained high-class representative honours after first learning to play rugby on the playing fields of UAE.
Jonny Macdonald
Abu Dhabi-born and raised, the current Jebel Ali Dragons assistant coach was selected to play for Scotland at the Hong Kong Sevens in 2011.
Jordan Onojaife
Having started rugby by chance when the Jumeirah College team were short of players, he later won the World Under 20 Championship with England.
Devante Onojaife
Followed older brother Jordan into England age-group rugby, as well as the pro game at Northampton Saints, but recently switched allegiance to Scotland.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Cheat’s nigiri
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Easy omurice
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Deconstructed sushi salad platter
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