Think Progress: Opponent Of Cordoba House Is Building A Museum On Top Of A Muslim Cemetery In Jerusalem

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center appeared on Fox News yesterday to argue against the Cordoba House project in lower Manhattan. “It’s a great idea, it’s the wrong location,” Hier said. “It’s very insensitive.”

HIER: For 3000 families, the 9/11 site is one of the — is the site of one of the greatest atrocities ever committed in the United States, and it’s a cemetery. And the opinion of the families should be paramount as to what should go near that site. Now having a fifteen-story mosque within 1600 feet of the site is at the very least insensitive.

Watch it:

Interestingly, while Hier believes that Ground Zero should be treated as a cemetery, Hier’s own organization is currently building a “Museum of Tolerance” atop an actual cemetery — the Mamilla Cemetery, a Muslim graveyard in Jerusalem “with thousands of grave sites that go back some 1200 years.” The planned museum has caused a huge international uproar, causing celebrity architect Frank Gehry to withdraw from the project.

In February 2010, the Center for Constitutional Rights and other groups filed a petitionon behalf of the Palestinian descendants of those buried in the Mamilla Cemetery. The petition claimed:

A significant portion of the cemetery is being destroyed and hundreds of human remains are being desecrated so that SWC can build a facility to be called the “Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance” on this sacred Muslim site.

Great idea. Wrong location.