The Joint List has issued its formal response to the decision of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality to demolish the Muslim Al-Asaf cemetery in the city of Yafo.
"This attempt to destroy the last remnant of the Arabic history of Yafo is a part of a larger attempt to destroy the Arab presence in today's Yafo," the Joint List statement reads. "A tractor that overturns a grave in order to destroy it damages an entire community which respects its dead and their place of burial. Those who see graves being destroyed in their neighborhoods will surely fear that their own homes are next in line.
"The Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality along with Mayor Huldai are now implementing the government's long-term policy of the destruction of the Arab-Palestinian community. At a time when this extreme-right government is destroying Arab homes, enabled by the Kaminitz law, and is dispossessing tens of thousands of Arabs in the Negev, it should be the task of local governments who are supposedly serving their residents, to protect their holy sites from destruction.
"We call on the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality to immediately stop the destruction of the Al-Asaf cemetery, and to initiate discussions with the committee for the protection of cemeteries. We have to find a solution whereby the the building they wish to built can be constructed without causing damage to the local community."