A representative of the the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the same center constructing a museum of intolerance on top of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem that has already resulted in the destruction and disinterment of thousands of Muslim graves and human remains, has called on the UN to dissolve the United Nations Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) because it “works to delegitimize the Jewish state”.
Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations attended a meeting in Brussels hosted by CEIRPP titled “The role of Europe in advancing Palestinian statehood and achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians” which he later characterized in a letter he wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as “a ‘gangbang’ against the State of Israel.”
I kid you not, check out how The Jerusalem Post spells out the meaning for their readership by quoting Merriam-Webster.com.
Meanwhile a forwarded email arrived in my inbox last night originating from Laura Raymond of the Center for Constitutional Rights in NYC:
I’m writing to share an alarming development regarding the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem. This past weekend, only weeks after a Jerusalem Municipal planning committee granted final permission for construction of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s so-called “Museum of Tolerance” atop the oldest Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers entered the part of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery that remained intact to destroy and dispose of nearly 100 grave markers, both ancient and renovated. The bulldozers worked under the cover of night (from 11pm to 1am on June 25-26, 2011), and retreated hastily when their operators realized that they were being filmed by local media and activists, as can be seen in the coverage broadcast by Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera
This just happened a couple nights ago. In the middle of the night, in the cover of darkness they went in and destroyed the remaining intact portions of the cemetery. I’m aghast, it breaks my heart. The photos in the (Arabic only) newsreels are horrific.
Raymond’s email:
Gideon Suleimani, the chief archaeologist appointed by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to excavate the site, concluded after a review of the site that construction should not continue and that the IAA’s conduct on the site, which contains “tens of thousands of skeletons,” constituted an “archeological crime.”
She implored us for help:
Can you help get the word out to archeologists and anthropologists and see if any network or group would be willing to organize against this- either through a statement, an open letter, or any other ideas that might emerge? I think it would be very powerful to have that sector of academics and professionals speak out on this. If you know of any groups that are concerned about cemetery desecrations please send this email to them.
Who’s protecting Palestine? Protection for Palestine needs to grow not shrink. This is an ugly ploy. As September draws near and Israel watches support for a Palestinian State swell, they try to create another opening for themselves again at the expense of the Palestinian people.
Samuels also wrote that the “General Assembly September vote on Palestinian status should be conditioned on prior dismantling of [the] pernicious UN Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People,” and told Ban that his representative had opened the meeting with a message conveying support for Palestinian unity with Hamas.
“The very existence of the United Nations Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People continually violates the United Nations Charter,” Samuels wrote. “By its delegitimization of the Jewish state, it is a political instrument that threatens a sovereign UN member, impugning its right to selfdefense under Article 51 of the Charter.”
(my bold throughout)
