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by Honest
Reporting
21 November
2002
This past week has
seen tragic attacks at the Hebron holy site, and against
innocent men, women and children on a Jerusalem bus.
A new potential
eruption is brewing in Jerusalem, and we want
HonestReporting
members to be prepared before anything happens.
For the third
time in the past six years, Muslim authorities appear
to be setting
up a Temple Mount controversy as a pretense for violence
against Israel. This time, however,
it could come at the expense of the lives of
thousands
of Ramadan worshippers.
As has been reported
internationally during the past several months,
Israeli archeologists have identified
a 35-foot wide bulge near the southern
end of the retaining walls of the Temple Mount. First
noticed about two years ago, a
political firestorm has erupted concerning whether
the bulge actually is there, and who
has the right and authority to make repairs.
Genuine concern
exists among archeologists concerning the structural
integrity of the Temple Mount, and its
ability to withstand the weight of the
tens of thousands of worshippers currently congregating
there for the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan.
"There's
no doubt that it will collapse before long," Dr.
Eilat Mazar, a Hebrew
university archaeologist, said recently in The Guardian.
"The question is by how much,
and whether it will bring down other structures
nearby, including the Al Aqsa mosque."
Of additional concern
is the political position of the Waqf -- the Muslim
authority given responsibility to maintain
the Temple Mount area -- and their
threats that if a collapse occurs, Israel will be directly
to blame.
Adnan Husseini,
director of the Waqf, was interviewed in Newsweek and
the Los
Angeles Times. He said: "This is something that
we are able to fix, but Israelis
want to use this to create more tension in the atmosphere...
Their real
agenda is to take over the place."
"The Israeli
government will be responsible if there are lives lost,"
he said.
Sounds all too familiar.
Similar refrains
resonated at the onset of violence in September 2000
when Arabs
rationalized their violence (since proved to be pre-meditated)
on the visit of Ariel Sharon to
the Temple Mount.
Four years earlier,
Arab rioting broke out against the backdrop of the
completion of an Israeli archeological
tunnel running along the outside base
of the western retaining wall. This tunnel never breached
the Temple Mount itself, and sits
hundreds of yards away from the Al Aqsa mosque --
actually
pointing in the opposite direction.
Nevertheless,
Arab riots erupted based on claims that the tunnel was
an Israeli
attempt to undermine the Muslim mosques.
* * *
The current damage
to the southern retaining wall and subsequent bulge
is attributed
to a construction project started by the Waqf in 1999
to open a large mosque in a vault
known as Solomon's Stables. In the process, some
key structural supports were removed.
Additionally, the laying of paving stones
for the mosque may have created a drainage problem that
has contributed to the bulge.
There is another
concern. An Israeli archeology committee claims that
the Islamic authority is trying
to eradicate archeological evidence that a Jewish
Temple ever stood on the site, and that tons of priceless
archeological relics have been hauled
off and/or thrown away.
"This is one
of the most serious archeological crimes ever committed
in this country," Gabriel
Barkai told Newsweek.
* * *
In the event of
a collapse during this year's Ramadan or afterward,
HonestReporting members should be keenly
aware of the background facts, in order
to analyze the accuracy of reporting.
For the better
part of 1,000 years, the Jewish Temple stood on the
Mount, a
huge, rectangular mountain-top courtyard closed in by
four supporting walls. The most
sanctified section of the Temple (the Holy of Holies)
rested nearly perpendicular to the middle
section of the western retaining wall
of the mountain. The current Western Wall plaza sits
adjacent to this section
facing the outside of the retaining wall.
A little more
than 1,930 years ago, the Second Temple was destroyed
by the Romans.
The courtyard lay virtually barren until the Muslim
conquest almost 600 years later
and the subsequent construction of the Al Aqsa
mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock.
Fast forward to
the summer of 1967 and the Six Day War. Israel retook
the Old City of Jerusalem -- Temple
Mount included -- from the Jordanians who had
exiled the Jews and assumed exclusive control 19 years
earlier in Israel's War of Independence.
In 1967, the Israelis, eager to restore the status
quo and to show respect for Muslim holy sites, ceded
political authority over the Temple
Mount to the Waqf, thus beginning a tenuous relationship
culminating with these current events.
A temporary compromise
in "the battle of the bulge" was reached last
month, allowing a team of Jordanian engineers
to inspect the wall and take samples
back to Amman.
As Gabriel Barkai
told the Los Angeles Times: "I'm not a prophet.
I can't say
exactly when, but there is no question that it will
collapse. All you need is a big
group to congregate up there for the equilibrium to
start shifting. It's a matter
of time."
Daniel Pipes says:
"This disaster would lead at least to wide-scale
fighting in Jerusalem and a heated international
crisis. If things really went
wrong, it could precipitate a wave of violence in Europe
and a full-blown Arab-Israeli
war. [Or] it could unleash an end-of-days messianism
in three monotheistic religions, with unforeseeable
consequences."
Newsweek has termed this
"The Armageddon Wall." Stay tuned.
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