Arab-Bedouin leaders in the Negev, along with several Arab members of Knesset and heads of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee arrived Sunday at the courtyard of Be’er Sheva’s largest mosque to protest against an upcoming wine festival this coming Wednesday.  The protesters erected a protest tent in front of the mosque, which will be manned 24 hours a day until the beginning of the festival.

The festival is slated to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in the mosque courtyard, which also doubles as an archeological museum. Many of the Muslims in the city and in the area claim that holding the festival in the courtyard is an insult.

geographer, Dr. Thabet Abu Ras, director of the southern branch of Adalah – the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said Be’er Sheva’s Great Mosque was built in 1907 and is considered to be of historical, religious and cultural value to Arab-Palestinian population in Israel.  Adalah turned recently to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and demanded his intervention, claiming that the use of the mosque courtyard for festivals and parties like the wine festival and “Monday in the Museum” parties constitute a continuous offense to local Muslim residents, Arab-Bedouins in particular.

In 2002 petitioners asked the High Court of Justice to order the Be’er Sheva municipality to let city residents and Muslim visitors pray in the Great Mosque. The High Court handed down its decision only last year, prohibiting prayers on the site but ruling that the building be designated as a museum of Islamic culture.