ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the case of the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance (MOT) from the perspective of conflict resolution. The museum entrepreneurs, for their part, submitted expert reports written by professors of Islamic law to counter those submitted by the Muslim plaintiffs. The dispute over building the MOT in Mamilla, a holy place, embodies a significant symbolic identity issue within a politics of identity in the wider Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The disputed plot of land in Mamilla that the Jerusalem municipality assigned for building the MOT had been part of an important, historic cemetery. The MOT project in the center of Jerusalem carries strong symbolic meaning. The chapter also examines the history of the dispute by paying close attention to the specific legal regimes involved: the combinations of religious and civil courts under the British Mandate as well as the Israeli justice system.
