A thundering silence on Temple Mount's depredation

Jewish World Review ^ | September 10, 2007 | Hershel Shanks

[Convert from ECUSA]

A thundering silence on Temple Mount's depredation

By Hershel Shanks

The "Jewish State" is allowing Judaism's holiest site to have its priceless artifacts destroyed and nobody seems to care

No one really cares. But that puts me in an elite group: It includes two of Israel's most prominent Jerusalem archaeologists (Gaby Barkay and Eilat Mazar) — and me.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Waqf goes on tearing up Jerusalem's Temple Mount, where once the Jewish Temple stood. The week before last, they hit an ancient wall that might be the foundation of a wall from the Second Temple complex built by Herod the Great.

It's an old/new story. For the past 35 years the Muslim religious authority known as the Waqf, to whom Israel has been given custody of the Temple Mount, has been periodically digging it up — illegally. (That's the Israel Supreme Court's characterization.) Several years ago, for example, the Waqf used mechanical equipment to dig a huge hole for a wide stairway down to a greatly expanded underground mosque, dumping hundreds of tons of dirt from the mount into the adjacent Kidron Valley.

When Zachi Zweig, a graduate student of Barkay's, started looking for antiquities in the Waqf dump, the Israel Antiquities Authority had Zweig arrested for digging without a permit. Since then, Barkay has obtained the permit and, with Zweig, they have engaged in a multi-year project sifting this archaeologically rich dump. They have found thousands of ancient artifacts going back 3000 years, including a seal impression of a probable brother of someone mentioned in the Bible.

Now the Waqf wants to lay new telephone and electric lines on the mount. Under Israeli law, in an area that might contain antiquities, the trench must be excavated by professional archaeologists.

[Americanexpat]

So why is everyone surprised about this? Muslims built a mosque on the site of Budda´s birthplace in India and used force to occupy and trash the birthplace of jesus daring the Isrealis to take them out.

[VOA]

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