PA wants ancient Jewish cemetery at Mount of Olives

From JPost: (via Daily Alert)

The Internal Security Ministry and the Housing Ministry announced that millions of Shekels will be invested to boost security at the Mount of Olives site in Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported on Tuesday.

The new plan will include hundreds of cameras and sensors, and will increase the activities of the border police at the site, according to the report.

The fact is that it is dangerous, even today, for Jews to visit the graves of their loved ones and ancestors on the Mount of Olives.

And that mountain is considered "occupied."

While many people discuss the issue of the Old City of Jerusalem in any final status discussions, there is very little written about the Mount of Olives. Yet that ancient burial ground has no sanctity nor history for Arabs or Muslims (although it has meaning for Christians.) There should be no question that this holy spot should remain under Jewish control.

And yet, last month, Ehud Barak hinted that the Mount of Olives can be placed under a "special regime" - meaning, at least partial Arab sovereignty.

Last year, JCPA published an important summary of all the issues around the Mount of Olives:

The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, that the Palestinians demand to transfer to their control, is the most important Jewish cemetery in the world. The area has constituted a religious and national pantheon for the Jewish people and the State of Israel, containing the tombs of the illustrious dead of the nation over the course of 3,000 years and serving as a site for Jewish gathering and prayer at the time of the ancient Temple and even prior to it.

Under Jordanian rule, Jewish access and the continued burial of Jews on the mount was prohibited, despite Jordan's explicit commitment in the Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Agreement of 1949. During the period of Jordanian rule, the cemetery was destroyed and desecrated, and 38,000 of its tombstones and graves were smashed to smithereens.

Since Jerusalem's reunification, burial ceremonies were renewed at the site and large sections of the cemetery were rehabilitated. Nevertheless, attempts by Palestinians to damage the cemetery have never totally abated, and there have been periodic attacks on Jewish mourners escorting their dead for burial.

Previous Israeli governments that consented to discuss arrangements in Jerusalem with the Palestinians rejected their demand to transfer the Mount of Olives to PA sovereignty and control. Nevertheless, those governments were prepared to give their assent to the transfer of neighborhoods that control the access routes to the mount. Should any such agreement be implemented in the future, it could endanger freedom of access to the site and continued Jewish burial there.

In any future arrangements, in order to allow continued Jewish burial on the mount, Israel must guarantee freedom of access to the site by controlling the arteries leading to it, as well as the areas adjacent to it. On the previous occasions that Israel transferred areas that included Jewish holy sites to Palestinian control, the Palestinians severely encumbered or refused to allow Jewish access to these places. Sometimes these sites were even severely damaged.

This is not an issue that Israel can compromise on.