However, Ala’a Qarash was denied a dignified burial. The reason: Qarash had sold property in Jerusalem to Jews. The former Palestinian Authority-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, insisted that “traitors” must not be buried in Muslim cemeteries.

And so, Qarash’s family could not find a place to lay him to rest.
It was Jerusalem Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern who eventually offered an extraordinary solution when he announced that Ala’a Qarash could be buried in a Jewish cemetery. “This genial non-Jew risked his life for the Jewish community in the land, and we have to respect that,” Rabbi Stern stressed.

Sheikh Sabri, who remains head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, routinely warns the local Arab population against suspicious grants of money that have just one purpose, to transfer Arab property to Israeli hands. Sabri claimed recently that Israeli firms are trying to...

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