Schwarzenegger dedicates museum

JERUSALEM — Helping to atone for World War II-era atrocities committed against Jews by his fellow Austrians, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday dedicated a planned museum of tolerance in the center of this strife-torn city.

“I was born in Austria, which is a beautiful country … but a place where intolerance and ignorance led to terrible atrocities,” the Hollywood star turned politician told a gathering of Israel’s top politicians and American Jewish leaders who financed and planned the museum.

“Because of that, I want to do whatever I can to promote tolerance around the world,” he said.

Just as the dedication ceremony was getting under way, word of a new atrocity filtered into Jerusalem’s Independence Park: A pregnant mother and her four daughters driving from their home in a Gaza Strip Jewish settlement had been fatally shot by Palestinian militants.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said he hoped the lessons taught in the museum’s classrooms, theater, conference halls and exhibition areas will help guide its visitors to “look past the suicide bombers, the terrorists, the blood” to a time “when people can live side by side.”

After criticism that he was snubbing Palestinians during his trip to Israel, Mr. Schwarzenegger told reporters Saturday that he planned a side trip to Jordan, which has a large Palestinian population, to visit his friend King Abdullah II.

Although Mr. Schwarzenegger made little mention of Palestinians, others at the dedication took sharp aim at Palestinian and Islamist terrorism as examples of intolerance.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom spoke of the “mother and her four children who were murdered by those terrorist Palestinians” and said he hoped the spirit of tolerance to be espoused by the museum “will hopefully build a future which these enemies of our freedom will no longer threaten.”

Rabbi Martin Hier, founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the museum designed by architect Frank Gehry would “affirm our belief that the Israel’s better days are ahead,” but warned of “violent, uncompromising, doctrinaire hatred that knows no bounds.”

“The free societies must use force” to stop such hatred, he said, “before the demons of militant Islamism meet the demons of nuclear weapons.”

The dedication was the impetus for Mr. Schwarzenegger’s first trip abroad since he was elected governor in November.

He followed the dedication of the museum project with a visit to Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. Mr. Schwarzenegger also met briefly with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mr. Shalom.

At a meeting Saturday night to promote business ties between California and Israel, Mr. Schwarzenegger was mobbed by Israeli and international journalists.

“With [President] Clinton, it was not like this,” said Sarah Davidovich, a grinning Israeli socialite and journalist who was being jostled by her colleagues. “We loved him, but he did not have so many people who wanted to touch him like Arnold.”