Beer el-Sabe Municipality Rejects Supreme Court's Suggestion to Open the Big Mosque as an Islamic Cultural Center and Demands that it be Converted into a Museum

On 22 February 2005, the Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) Municipality filed its written response to the Supreme Court of Israel, stating therein its rejection of the Court's proposal regarding the opening of the Big Mosque in Beer el-Sabe for a specified period of time as an Islamic cultural center. The municipality justified its rejection on the grounds of public safety and security, claiming that if permission were granted to restore the building to its function as a mosque, a conflict would inevitably ensure between the Muslim and Jewish communities in Beer el-Sabe. The municipality instead insisted that the Mosque should be opened as a museum.

The Supreme Court made its suggestion on 10 January 2005, during its deliberations on a petition submitted by Adalah in August 2002 on behalf of the Association for Support and Defense of Bedouin Rights in Israel and in its own name, against the Municipality, the Development Authority, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Minister of Science. The petitioners demanded that the mosque be re-opened for prayer. Adalah Attorney Morad el-Sana filed the petition, which demands that the 5,000 Muslim residents of Beer el-Sabe and approximately 150,000 Muslims in the Naqab (Negev) be allowed to pray in the Big Mosque.

Beer el-Sabe Municipality has refused to allow Muslims to pray in the Big Mosque since 1948, when the majority of the town's Arab residents became refugees. After the end of the military rule, imposed on all Palestinians in Israel from 1948 to 1966, Muslims requested to be allowed once again to renovate and pray in the mosque. The municipality refused their repeated requests. The Mosque was used as a court and prison until 1953. Thereafter, it was used as a museum until 1991, after which it was closed. Today and for the past 13 years, the Mosque lies dilapidated and unprotected.

At a hearing in May 2003, the state committed to establishing an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the issue and make recommendations concerning the possibility of re-opening the Mosque for prayer. In its report, released in September 2004, the committee recommended that Muslims should not be allowed to pray in the Big Mosque. At the last hearing held on the petition on 10 January 2005, the Supreme Court criticized the composition of the ministerial committee, which did not include a single Arab Muslim. The Court added that the state had acted unjustly by failing to take into consideration the rights of Muslims in Beer el-Sabe. The Court suggested that the subject should be settled through the opening of the mosque as an Islamic cultural center for a specified period of time, following the elapse of which the petitioners reserve the right to present a further demand for the opening of the mosque for prayer, should circumstances allow.

Adalah's position is that Beer el-Sabe Municipality's response to the Court's suggestion is racist, and has no respect for the Muslim community of Beer el-Sabe or its heritage. As Adalah contended in its own response to the Court submitted on 4 February 2005, the rights of religious minorities must be respected under domestic and international law, and that the Big Mosque must therefore be opened not as an Islamic Cultural Center, but as a place of worship.

H.C. 7311/02, Association for Support and Defense of Bedouin Rights in Israel, et. al. v. The Municipality of Beer Sheva, et. al., (case pending).

For more information see Featured Case on the Big Mosque in Adalah's Newsletter, Vol. 9, January 2005.