Structural Collapse on Temple Mount

An interior wall has collapsed at a hotly contested Jerusalem holy site, setting off fears of religious violence between Muslims and Jews.

The Islamic Waqf, which administers the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrines atop the Temple Mount, accused Israeli authorities of instigating the failure of the wall by preventing engineers from maintaining it.

Adnan al-Husseini of the Waqf said the failure was the result of "the Israeli intervention in our work and preventing us from maintaining it after we stated it was in urgent need for a rapid action to prevent its collapse," according to multiple news reports from Israel.

"It looks terrible," said Eliat Mazar, an Israeli archaeologist and Temple Mount expert and a leader of the committee for preventing the destruction of antiquities at the site. "This collapse might cause a terrific series of collapses."

She charged the Waif with directing "unsupervised" work in and around the Temple Mount resulting in the loss of archaeological treasures.

Last December, WorldNetDaily reported a huge bulge had developed in an outer southern wall on the 37-acre Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Israel waited for Jordanian engineers to repair it.

The Temple Mount is the foundation of the Jewish Temple that was destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans. Because it is the only remnant of the foundation, it is considered the holiest site for observant Jews – perhaps the only true holy site. Muslims claim it is the third holiest in their faith because two mosques were constructed on the site hundreds of years later.

Despite the fact the Temple Mount is the only real estate in the world revered by Jews, Israel has turned over day-to-day administration of the area to the Waqf, an Islamic trust with close ties to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

A year-long dispute between Israel and the Waqf over who will fix the bulge was solved in October with a decision to involve the Jordanian engineers, who inspected and took a sampling of the protruding wall.

A report the engineers subsequently issued recommended replacing some of the eroding stones in the 2,000-year-old wall to prevent it from future collapse.

Israeli archeologists believe the bulge and the new wall collapse are due to unauthorized Waqf construction at an underground area known as Solomon's Stables, located on the other side of the wall. Reports say Muslim authorities are constructing yet another mosque at the Jewish holy site.

Faulty drainage was cited by the Antiquities Authority as the probable cause for the bulge in its report, issued last year.

Prior to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, Jordan was in charge of maintenance at the Temple Mount. In the years since, the PA, seeking to gain a foothold in Jerusalem, ousted both the Jordanian-appointed Waqf director and the Jerusalem mufti – both of whom had for years quietly cooperated with Israel – and replaced them with its own people.

Fearing renewed Palestinian violence, police barred non-Muslims from entering the Temple Mount for nearly two years after Ariel Sharon's controversial visit in September 2000, leaving the area without any archeological supervision. In recent weeks, non-Muslim tourists have been permitted back with police or military escorts.

Newsweek has called the southern wall "The Armageddon wall," because the old rocks help support an enormous stone platform that holds the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, among Islam's most sacred shrines.

Should it collapse, some archeologists fear a doomsday effect – dead worshippers, perhaps in the thousands, riots throughout the Middle East and charges that Israel is responsible.

A short history of the temple mount I found....

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee." - the ancient Israeli King David, in the Tenakh, ca 1000 BC

Few would dispute that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is one of the most important 45 acres on the planet earth. From a secular perspective, there is no reason Jerusalem and its contested Temple Mount should be so valuable to so many people around the world. Jerusalem is not on a major trade route, it has no harbor, and is not a great center of commerce or wealth. Yet, all the nations of the world look at Jerusalem and shudder, as final status negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel failed over the incredibly contentious issue of Jerusalem. All over the western world, people felt let down as violence erupted throughout Israel in an escalating maelstrom, with Palestinian militias engaging Israeli soldiers throughout the small nation. The expectations of peace, which welled so great in so many people around the world, were shattered as Israeli soldiers were lynched by a Palestinian mob and Israeli Cobra gunships fired rocket salvoes into PA controlled areas of Israel in retaliation.

Unfortunately, the western media and politicians largely ignored the ancient roots of the conflict. Jerusalem is held sacred by tens of millions of Jews and hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. The high expectations of peace were highly dependent on a millennium long conflict being forgotten by both sides.

To the Jews, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the most important piece of real estate on earth. Some Jewish mystics believe the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stood on the huge foundation stone of the Temple Mount when he created the world. The great Jewish patriarch Abraham almost sacrificed his beloved son on Mount Moriah, a vastly important event in the history of Judaism. Mount Moriah, of course, is the very spot known as the Temple Mount today, in the heart of Jerusalem. Two great Jewish temples of antiquity were built on this site, and all Jewish males were required to come to the Temple Mount three times each year, for the great feasts of Passover, Weeks, and Tabernacles. The first temple was built by King Solomon around 950 BC, and was destroyed by the Babylonians when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem in 586 BC. Rebuilding of a second temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem began in 520 BC by Zerubbabel. The second temple was expanded substantially in 38 BC by Herod, the Roman appointee governor of Israel. The second temple stood until 70 AD, when the 5th, 10th, 12th, and 15th Roman legions led by Titus Vespasian invaded and razed Jerusalem to put down a Jewish revolt against Roman imperial authority. Jerusalem is mentioned by name 667 times in the Jewish holy scriptures, the Tenakh, and alluded to innumerable other times by other names, including the City of David. Without Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, the beating heart of Judaism is ripped out of its chest.

Following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount lay fallow for 70 years. In 141 AD, the Romans led by Antoninius Pius built a Roman temple on the site known as Aelia Capitolina, in direct response to another Jewish revolt to regain the Temple Mount led by Bar Kochba. In 312 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine had his famous vision of the cross in the sky, ostensibly converted to Christianity, and officially established Christianity as the state religion of Rome. The Roman temples, including Aelia Capitolina, were converted into Christian churches.

In 570 AD, a man was born who would forever change the course of history and have a vast impact on the world. The Prophet Mohammed was from a powerful trading family from the city of Mecca, in what is now western Saudi Arabia. As he was nearing the latter days of his incredibly interesting life, Mohammed wrote the Koran, the holy book of Islam. The word "Islam" means submission to the will of Allah, and Mohammed laid down the foundation for the faith. Mohammed's teachings would form the nucleus of the fastest growing religion ever seen on earth. Although the Koran does not mention Jerusalem by name, in the seventeenth sura the famous night journey (al-Mi'raj) of Mohammed is referenced. The Prophet was awoken from his sleep by the great Archangel Gabriel. The Angel had brought a mighty horse for Mohammed to ride, Burak. Gabriel led Mohammed and Burak through the night air to Mount Sinai, where Moses had received the Law, to Bethlehem, where Jesus Christ had been born, and then to the "remote mosque", which the majority of Muslim scholars believe is a reference to the foundation stone of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. From the remote mosque, Mohammed ascended into heaven, met many of the Biblical patriarchs, and was shown the glory of heaven by the Archangel Gabriel. As the modern Islamic world firmly believes the Temple Mount is the launching point of the ascension of Mohammed, Jerusalem is the third most important holy site in the Islamic faith, right behind Mecca and Medina.

In 637, soon after Mohammed's death in 632, Muslims captured Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock was built to commemorate Mohammed's ascension. The Dome is the architecturally beautiful building with the golden cupola so prominent in all the pictures of Jerusalem we see today. The mosque is of vast importance to hundreds of millions of Muslims around the globe. In 715 a companion mosque was built immediately south of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, the Al Aqsa mosque. In 1099, the European crusaders captured Jerusalem. In 1187, one of the greatest warriors who ever lived, the great Saladin, routed the crusaders and Islam once again gained hegemony over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. In 1517, the Turks captured the Holy City which then became part of the Ottoman Empire. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW1, British general Allenby captured Jerusalem in 1917. In 1922 the League of Nations ratified the British Mandate on Palestine, allocating land East of the Jordan River to the Palestinian Arabs, in a state to be called Transjordan (simply Jordan today). Land west of the Jordan River was given to the Jews. In 1947, the United Nations proposed partitioning Israel in Resolution 181, with the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and most of northern Israel going to the Arabs, and the rest to the Jews. The Jews agreed to the partition, but the Arabs declared it unacceptable. In May 1948, Israel declared its nationhood and Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq immediately declared war on Israel. Jordan captured the eastern half of Jerusalem in the war, including the Temple Mount, but Israel survived the hostile onslaught. In June 1967, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan again invaded Israel, and were once again routed. Israel recaptured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount before the short war ended. In a conciliatory move, Israel allowed the Waqf, the Muslim High Council, to retain administration of the Temple Mount. It has been under direct Islamic control in the center of Jewish Jerusalem ever since.

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