Building Of Illegal Mosque Encroaches On Grave Of Menachem Begin

Arutz Sheva is reporting on a mosque that is being illegally enlarged close to the grave of Menachem Begin:

A mosque is being illegally constructed in close proximity to the graves of deceased prime minister Menachem Begin and Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the reviver of spoken Hebrew. Activist Aryeh King has repeatedly asked the Jerusalem Municipality to stop the construction next to the Mount of Olives Cemetery but he says the Municipality is in no hurry to do so.


Arabs began enlarging a small existing mosque last October, King told Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew-language service. In one week’s time, the size of the mosque’s floor had doubled. Complaints were filed with the municipality but the municipality dawdled and the builders added walls. In December the Municipality issued a stop work order, but the Arabs kept on building.

King says work continues on the site, including excavation eight meters deep for an unknown purpose. The Municipality is dragging its feet, says King, now saying that stopping the building of a mosque is “sensitive” and requires legal consultation.  

Arutz Sheva notes that this is typical of the way the government deals with these kinds of situations--referring to 2009 when retroactive approval was granted to many illegally constructed structures in Arab-populated eastern Jerusalem

Here is a clip from a news program, in Hebrew, with Aryeh King:



This is reminiscent of an incident in 1997, when a group of 200 Arab protesters in Nazareth insisted on building a mosque near the Church of the Annunciation. The police felt the situation was too sensitive to interfere, but since this was a Christian holy place--the Christian world insisted that Israel take action. A commission was appointed to look into the situation, headed by Natan Sharansky.

In his book, Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy, Sharansky writes:

I called for an open public review of the entire situation. [...] While the Christian representatives passionately called for an immediate stop to the abuse of a sacred site, the message from at least some of the Arab religious leaders and Arab members of the Knesset [Israel's Parliament] was threatening. I was told in no uncertain terms that any attempt to deny them the right to build the mosque would trigger a bloodbath across the Mideast. I was warned that there would be pogroms against Jews everywhere in the Moslem world, in outrage that Jews would take sides in a conflict between Moslems and Christians.

Then came the final chapter in this episode that took me by surprise. We went to Nazareth to hold local hearings. Lawyers, businessmen, an editor of the local newspaper, and influential members of the community, both Arab Moslems and Christians, asked to talk to me face to face, in private, without protocols, to deliver a message. It would be a tragedy, each of them said privately, to give in to the extremists. The city had already begun to live in an atmosphere of fear. Only by opposing the extremist demands and taking a stand against them could we rescue the community. The respected members of the community had become afraid to speak publicly. But the wanted the state to act. I realized that our appeasement had betrayed not only Christian identity, not only moderate Moslems, but democracy itself. (pages 197-198)

Victor Shikhman describes what happened next:

The committee proposed three nearby sites for the Islamists to build a mosque of whatever size they wanted, but these offers were again rejected. It became clear that the Islamists were not interested in compromise. Their extremist public demands were merely a tool in the behind-the-scenes battle for leadership of the Muslim Arab community in Israel, and control over Nazareth. They gained from conflict and tensions; a resolution to the crisis was against their interests.

Ignoring dire warnings that bloodshed would engulf the entire Middle East, Sharansky decided to take a stand. He made a recommendation to the government that the police should be ordered to clear the square, that tourist center construction should proceed as planned, and that several nearby locations would be made available on which to build a mosque, if the Muslim community desired it. As the Knesset deliberated over the recommendations, thousands of police officers were brought to the city in expectation of mass violence, which never materialized. As Sharansky puts it, "There was no bloodbath and no violence. The moment the government started to act, the Islamic movement lost its power and attraction in Nazareth..." (page 199).

Menachem Begin was known for standing up for Israel and not being afraid to stand up for Isarel against anyone who tried to malign it.

Let's see if the Israeli government is up to the challenge of standing up to the Muslim pressure and uphold the law against illegal construction.

Hat tip: Muqata

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