The Mufti, the hotel and the cemetery

Tom Segev and Haim Watzman in their book "One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate," tell an incredible story about the infamous Mufti Husseini of Jerusalem and his hotel.

According to the book, the Mufti didn't knowingly build the Palace Hotel on top of the Mamilla Cemetery. At least, not at first. He built the hotel across the street - but the workers did find human remains.

The Mufti's reaction? Don't tell anybody about it and move the bones elsewhere.

Later, when Husseini's archrival Mayor Nashabishi of Jerusalem refused to connect the Palace Hotel to the sewer system, Husseini agreed to lay pipes to send the hotel's (partially treated) sewage - to the cemetery itself.

This excerpt from the book (pp 278-279) is fascinating, and exposes yet again the hypocrisy of Arab Muslims concerning the supposed sanctity of Muslim graves in Jerusalem (click to enlarge):