Muslims Digging on Temple Mount

One of my readers alerted me today to a story of pillage and destruction that is taking place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem without any Western media attention at all, and without a word from the usual suspects. It seems that the Waqf–the Muslim authority that Israel allows to control much of the Temple Mount because of the presence there of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosques–is using a bulldozer as part of a construction project that includes digging 2.5 foot deep trenches across the face of the Mount, in the process destroying archaeological artifacts with abandon.

Here’s an example of what the digging looks like:

 

Here’s a link to a YouTube clip of the construction, including the unsupervised bulldozer. Dr. Leen Ritmeyer, biblical archaeologist at the University of Leeds, in his blog describes the setting and possible consequences. And here’s a Biblical Archaeology Society editorial that describes the possible damage to antiquities and protests against it. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz notes that this is not going on unprotested:

The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, an apolitical group comprised of archaeologists and intellectuals from the left and right, criticized the use of a tractor for excavation at the Temple Mount “without real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation.”

Speaking for the committee yesterday, archaeologist Eilat Mazar said: “There is disappointment at the turning of a blind eye and the ongoing contempt for the tremendous archaeological importance of the Temple Mount.”

Ha’aretz also noted that Israeli efforts earlier this year to shore up a bridge that leads to the Temple Mount received a somewhat different response:

At the beginning of the year, Israeli excavations near the Temple Mount, part of a plan to rebuild the Mugrabi bridge walkway, led to violent protests from Arabs in Israel and around the world.

Among those protesting was the gang at Churches for Middle East Peace, about whom I wrote here. You might remember CMEP writing to Secretary of State Rice:

A delegation from Churches for Middle East Peace visited Jerusalem and the Haram al-Sharif last year. We were again reminded of just how significant this site is to our Muslim brothers and sisters and therefore feel even more acutely for them at this time.

 

Apparently that concern for Muslim sensibilities doesn’t extend to Jewish ones, given the lack of response to this news (CMEP’s leaders can’t even claim they don’t know about it, because they clearly read Ha’aretz on a regular basis, and quote from it frequently). Big surprise.

Part of what lots of people in the West, including CMEP, refuse to recognize is that, aside from the intrinsic scientific and religious vandalism that this kind of work involves, there’s also a political subtext. Muslims have been trying to de-legitimize Jewish claims to the Temple Mount as a Jewish holy site for decades. In the face of all evidence, they insist that neither the Temple of Solomon nor the Second Temple were located on the Temple Mount, and that Jews therefore have no right to even be there, much less control any aspect of it. What’s going on there now is part of that continuing effort, as is demonstrated by the BAS editorial:

We are also told that the Moslem authorities removed the ancient remains they excavated before they could be fully examined, drawn and recorded, and apparently before they were photographed. These ancient remains—a wall over 16 feet long and 6 feet wide that, according to Dr. Kaufman, formed part of the foundation of the eastern wall of the Temple compound—have thus been destroyed forever without any adequate record having been made for scholars’ use now or in the future.

This is of a piece with past Waqf practice, as Israel National News states:

Past excavations carried out by the Wakf resulted in tons of priceless archaeological artifacts being mixed with garbage and dumped in the Kidron Valley. Some of that dumped earth was transported to the Tzurim Valley, below Hebrew University, where Zweig organized a group of archaeological students and volunteers who are still sifting through it after finding antiquities from the First and Second Temple periods.

Hopefully, voices will start to be raised against this religious, scientific, and political atrocity.

 

(Hat tip: Diana.)