NEWS STORY: Religious and Political Debate Rages Over Arafat’s Chosen Burial Site

c. 2004 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ Before recently lapsing into a coma, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reportedly said he wanted to be laid to rest in Jerusalem, atop the Harem al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest site in Islam. But just like many sites in the Holy […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ Before recently lapsing into a coma, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat reportedly said he wanted to be laid to rest in Jerusalem, atop the Harem al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest site in Islam.

But just like many sites in the Holy Land, this most contested of religious shrines, which once housed the biblical Temples and which today houses the Al Aksa Mosque, is inextricably tied up with politics.


The Palestinians insist that the eastern part of the city where the mount is located should be the capital of their future independent state. Israel insists that Jerusalem must remain its undivided capital.

At a cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that he would not permit Arafat to be buried on the mount, no matter how much international pressure is exerted on him.

Although Sharon did not elaborate, some political commentators have said that permitting such a burial would strengthen Palestinian claims to the eastern part of the city.

Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, told RNS that Arafat’s burial would be “unthinkable” from an Israeli perspective.

Referring to the many times Arafat told the Arab world that the Jewish Temples were never built on the mount, Steinberg said: “Arafat denied any Jewish connection to Jerusalem. He even tried doing this when he met with President Clinton at the Camp David Summit. He tried to increase hatred between Muslims and Jews and between Palestinians and Israelis by using Jerusalem as a weapon. To honor such a man by burying him in Jerusalem is unthinkable.”

Religious Jews fear that a human burial _ any burial _ atop the mount might compromise the site’s sanctity. Jews consider the mount so holy that, years ago, most prominent rabbis declared it off-limits to Jewish worshippers for fear that they would tread on the Holy of Holies where the biblical Abraham is believed to have offered up his son Isaac for sacrifice. However, most rabbis recently began permitting such visits as a way for Jews to assert their rights on the Muslim-controlled mount.

Then there are the logistics of such a burial. Hundreds of foreign dignitaries are expected to attend Arafat’s funeral, including several who do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. It is highly unlikely that Sharon would agree to host the leaders of Syria or Iraq, for example.


Despite the uncertainty over Arafat’s declining condition, Friday prayers at the mount passed peacefully. Tens of thousands of Muslim faithful could be seen descending down the narrow alleyways of the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, on their way to religious services. Many had prayer rugs draped over their shoulders.

Although no exact statistics are available, it appears that a vast majority of Muslims would like to see Arafat accorded a Jerusalem burial as close to the mount as possible.

“Arafat should be buried in the great mosque. If he’s dead, what harm can it do?” said Said, a Muslim shopkeeper in the Old City who asked that his last name not be published because he is living in Jerusalem without a legal residency permit. “Of course (the Israelis) should permit Arafat to be buried on the mount,” seconded Sami Tanus, a Catholic resident of Jerusalem. “Where else should they bury him? The middle of the desert?”

That’s exactly where some Jews would like Arafat to be interred.

“He should be buried in Ramallah, next to his own people,” said Michal Ezer, a Jerusalem mother sitting in a courtyard in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. “Har Habayit is the site of the Temples and where the Third Temple will be built,” Ezer said, using the Hebrew term for the mount. “No one should be buried there, especially not a terrorist who murdered so many Jews.”

“Arafat was the best in the world at two things: lying and killing,” said Eric Wyler, the owner of a Jewish Quarter stationery store. “I’d like to see him buried in France or Tunisia, but definitely not in Jerusalem.”

MO/PH END CHABIN

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