Recent Developments in the News
regarding the Temple Mount

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU

What? Israel to help Muslims carve Quranic verses on Temple Mount Islamic writings all over holiest site for Judaism

Posted: September 16, 2008
By Aaron Klein
©2008 WorldNetDaily

The Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM Ð After three years of waiting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quietly has granted permission to the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount to repair and enhance Quranic verses plastered around Judaism's holiest site, WND has learned.

The approval came as result of the petitioning of the Israeli government by Jordan, which has been solidifying control over the Temple Mount in recent years.

There are more than 4,000 Quranic quotations written in Arabic calligraphy and carved into various Islamic buildings throughout the Temple Mount, including inside and outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.

Six hundred of the carved verses are in poor condition, according to the Waqf, the Mount's Muslim custodians.

The Waqf has been asking Israel for permission to repair the Quranic quotation carvings for years now. It even transported to the Israeli port city of Ashdod boxes of European tools and machinery especially made to repair the Temple Mount Quranic verses. The tools have been sitting in Ashdod for three years, according to informed sources.

Following Jordanian intervention, Olmert last week gave the Waqf approval to begin fixing the Quranic quotes, the informed sources told WND.

Jordan controlled areas of eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, from 1948 until Israel recaptured the site in the 1967 Six Day War.

During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the Western Wall and Temple Mount, and hundreds of synagogues in eastern Jerusalem were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road that stretched across the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Temple Mount, bulldozing hundreds of Jewish gravestones in the process.

Following the Six Day War, one of the first acts of Moshe Dayan, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, was to ensure the Jordanian-allied Mufti of Jerusalem, Abd Al Hamid A Saih, the holy site would remain under Islamic custodianship.

Dayan later also famously ordered an Israeli flag removed from the Dome of the Rock.

Jordan continues to maintain a major influence over the Temple Mount. Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed in February 2007 as the new manager of the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority although toward the end of his rein, he seemed to be warming to Jordan.

In a gesture to Jordan, in January 2006, Israel granted Jordan permission to replace the main podium in the Al Aqsa Mosque from which Islamic preachers deliver their sermons. The podium, which was partially funded by Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the most important stands in the Muslim world. Muslims now believe it marks the "exact spot" Muhammad went up to heaven to receive revelations from Allah.

The new stand bears the emblem of the Jordanian kingdom. It replaced a 1,000-year-old podium believed to have been shipped to Jerusalem by the Islamic conqueror Saladin.

That stand was destroyed in 1969, when an Australian tourist set fire to the Al Aqsa Mosque.

In recent years, Jordan quietly has been purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials speaking to WND.

The officials disclosed the Jordanian kingdom in 2006 and 2007 used shell companies to purchase several apartments and shops located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount. The shell companies at times presented themselves as acting on behalf of the Waqf custodians of the Temple Mount, according to information obtained.

The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the shell companies to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections of the Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales at any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near the Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. The First Jewish Temple was built there by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's shechina or "presence" dwelt. All Jewish holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Jewish Temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place for the Jewish people.

According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. The site is believed to be the Biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Jewish tradition holds Mashiach, or the Jewish Messiah, will return and rebuild the third and final Temple on the Mount in Jerusalem.

The Kotel, or Western Wall, is the one part of the Temple Mount that survived the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and stands today in Jerusalem.

Throughout all notorious Jewish exiles, thorough documentation shows the Jews never gave up their hope of returning to Jerusalem and re-establishing their Temple. To this day Jews worldwide pray facing the Western Wall, while Muslims turn their backs away from the Temple Mount and pray toward Mecca.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph.

About 100 years ago, Al Aqsa in Jerusalem became associated with the place Muslims came to believe Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jerusalem, however, is not mentioned in the Quran.

Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" Ð believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia Ð to "the farthest mosque," and from a rock there ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah that became part of the Quran.

Palestinians today claim exclusivity over the Temple Mount and Palestinian leaders routinely deny Jewish historic connection to the site, but historically, Muslims did not claim the Al Aqsa Mosque as their third holiest site and admitted the Jewish Temples existed.

According to research by Israeli author Shmuel Berkovits, Islam previously disregarded Jerusalem. He points out in his book "How Dreadful Is this Place!" that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for. Berkovits wrote that Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship, and sanctifying only one place Ð the Kaaba in Mecca Ð to signify the unity of God.

As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings influenced the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula, and that "in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron."

It wasn't until the late 19th century Ð incidentally when Jews started immigrating to Palestine Ð that some Muslim scholars began claiming Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associated Muhammad's purported night journey with the Temple Mount.

A guide to the Temple Mount by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem published in 1925 listed the Mount as the site of Solomon's Temple.

The Temple Institute acquired a copy of the official 1925 "Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif," which states on page 4, "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute.

This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the Lord.'"

My first introduction to Jerusalem in 2006 took place on Tisha Be'av, the fast commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples. I stood at the Western Wall, during that time of the Second War in Lebanon, watching thousands of Jewish faithful, from all different walks of life - women and men, soldiers and Hassidim, Sephardim and Ashkenazim - gathered in unity to remember and to mourn. It was like entering the very soul of Israel.

Gabriel Barkay. 'Temple denial is more serious and more dangerous than Holocaust denial.'

This Tisha Be'av caused me to reflect further on those lost Temples, particularly now that I have spent two years in the country, during which I had occasion to visit the Temple Mount. After passing through two security checks before entering, a different world appeared - one with no visible vestige of Judaism - on that ancient and holiest of Jewish sites.

Christianity hasn't fared any better. In fact, for Christians, the writing is on the wall - literally and figuratively - the wall inside the Dome of the Rock. In Arabic calligraphy dating from the seventh century, the text declares that God has no son; that Jesus was not resurrected (Islam also denies that he was crucified); that Jews and Christians, "the People of the Book," transgress by not embracing Muhammad's revelation; and that Allah's reckoning will come swiftly on those who do not believe.

Christians' attachment to the Temple Mount is based on Jesus's words and deeds as recorded in the Gospels.

It was strange enough for me to discover, therefore, that Jews and Christians are not permitted to read their scriptures or pray aloud there. But it wasn't until learning that during the 2000 Camp David negotiations, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat had denied that any Jewish Temple had ever existed on the Mount that I grasped the depth of the divergence from the Hebrew Scripture, New Testament and historical records that is out there, and not as fringe an idea as one might assume.

SIFTING THROUGH tons of rubble that had been illicitly dug up on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Wakf and stealthily dumped into a landfill, biblical archeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkay, professor at Bar-Ilan University, is in the midst of the project of a lifetime. I put the question of Temple denial to him.

"This denial of the historical, spiritual and archeological connections of the Jews to the Temple Mount is something new," he says. "There was always talk about the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem - called the 'praise of Jerusalem'- in Arabic literature, in Islamic literature. This new idea of Temple denial is due to the Arabic fear of Jewish aspirations connected to the Temple Mount. It is part of something I call the 'cultural intifada.'"

Barkay says the change took place in the 1990s: "In the Washington DC think tanks surrounding president Bill Clinton, it was understood that the Temple Mount was the crux of the problem of the Middle East conflict. These think tanks decided that if there could be 'split sovereignty' on the Temple Mount, then split sovereignty could also be achieved over the entire land of Palestine. So they suggested that in a future agreement, the Temple Mount would be split horizontally. That is to say that whatever is above ground, the part that includes the shrines of the Muslims, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Whatever is underground, which would include the remnants of the Temple of the Jews, would be under Israeli sovereignty.

"It's a brilliant idea, an excellent idea, but totally idiotic from a practical point of view. You cannot have a building standing with its foundations in another country. You cannot have a building with the infrastructure and the plumbing in another country. And you cannot have sovereignty on the subground without having accessibility to the subground, because the accessibility is from above ground. The whole thing was stupid."

Barkay explains that the Temple Mount is honeycombed with more than 50 different cavities, holes, passageways and cisterns that are "filled with earth which is saturated with very valuable archeological materials. Enormous damage was done in these works which were carried out mainly from 1996 and onward. The idea that came from the circles surrounding Bill Clinton and leaked to the Wakf authorities is what generated the illicit building activities - I wouldn't call them excavations - but destructive work which was carried out brutally on the Temple Mount. The fear, the fear of anything representing a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount drove them mad."

PRIOR TO my own visits to the Mount, I had been warned not to carry a bible or "holy objects" with me, and to stay away from the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Aksa Mosque, into which non-Muslims are forbidden to go. Nor was I allowed to see a third edifice which I'd read about - the Marwani Mosque - a gigantic, subterranean building, located in the southeast corner of the Temple Mount Plaza. In 1996, the Wakf had reconfigured an underground structure, formerly known as "Solomon's Stables," into a mosque. Their contractors lowered the inside surface of the building by removing large quantities of priceless soil, rich in archeological evidence.

According to Barkay, the history they hauled away in dump trucks was not Muslim. "The building was never a mosque. It is actually more connected to traditions about Jesus. There are quite solid hints in the literature of the existence of an early Christian church there, marking the place where St. James was killed in the first century. The place is more Christian than Muslim."

In November 1999, the Wakf asked permission from the Israeli government to open an emergency exit leading from the Marwani Mosque.

"The prime minister at that time was Ehud Barak, and as usual he didn't consult with anybody else," Barkay recalls. "He gave them permission. But instead of an emergency exit, they created a main entrance to the building - a monumental entrance. For that entrance, they dug a pit 40 meters long and 12 meters deep. They did it with bulldozers in the most destructive manner possible, that of a bull in a china shop. The work on that place should have been done carefully, not with bulldozers. They removed 400 truckloads of earth."

For Barkay, sifting through those truckloads of material is essential, because it amounts to exploring a black hole in archeological history. Although Israel is one of the most excavated places in the world, explored continuously since the 1850s, the Temple Mount has been surveyed but never excavated. Therefore, ironically, the digging and removal of earth in the 1990s has provided a new opportunity.

"At least it enables us to look at the soil, though everything comes from a very disturbed context," Barkay says. "But we know it comes from the Temple Mount. And we have tens of thousands of finds."

These finds, that cover approximately 15,000 years, have altered the historic understanding of the area's history. Sponsored by the Ir David Foundation, volunteers working with Barkay have been sifting through the debris, and have found Stone Age flint implements. They have discovered pre-Israelite material, Bronze Age pottery, two Egyptian scarabs and several seals and seal impressions.

One very significant find, confirming the recorded history of the Temple's existence, is the fragment of a bulla, a clay lump with a seal impression upon it, which is about 2,600 years old and dates from the First Temple period. Its inscription bears part of official's name, Gealyahu son of Immer. The Immer family is recorded in the Bible. "In Jeremiah 20:1," Barkay says, "probably the brother of Gealyahu is mentioned, a priestly man named Pashur son of Immer. He is introduced as the man in charge of the Temple."

Findings from the time of Solomon's Temple up to the 20th century illuminate the raging conflicts of passing civilizations. "We have enormous quantities of war artifacts: We have lead slingshots of the Seleucid armies in the battles of Judah Maccabee. We have arrowheads of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the First Temple. We have arrowheads of the Hellenistic period. We have one arrowhead bearing distinguishing markings of having been shot by a catapult. Those machines were only used by the armies of Titus in 70 CE in the destruction of the Second Temple. We have stone slingshots; we have spearheads; and we have medieval arrowheads from the Crusader conquest of the Temple Mount. There are even bullets from both the Turkish army and the British army in World War I."

Other findings on the Temple Mount - jewelry, coins, pottery shards and architectural fragments - provide specific details of human life spanning several millennia. "We have material dating back to the 10th century BCE, the time of David and Solomon. We have material from the time of the kings of Judah. We have material in abundance from the early Christian period. This is very significant, because it is written in most history books that the churches moved to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher after it was built (it dates back to at least the fourth century), and that thereafter the Temple Mount was neglected and was a garbage heap. But now we have to build a new history, based on archeological evidence.

"We have fragments of capitals from church buildings. We have remnants of chancel screens that separated the presbytery from the nave of the church. We have several bronze weights for weighing gold coins from the Christian era. We have to rethink the role of the Temple Mount in the time of early Christianity. Was it a garbage heap? Or is that biased history? I think that history was ideological."

Barkay says that large quantities of animal bones have been found on the Mount. "Bones are very important. We have pig bones which had to have come from pagan or Christian times. We also have bones of foxes. And that is interesting, because in the Talmud we have a story about foxes which until recently I thought was a legend."

IN SPITE of these discoveries, Temple denial remains a growing phenomenon in Europe and America, particularly in leftist intellectual circles. It is supported by the reality that there are no visible remains of the temples of Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. Barkay contends that there were remains still visible in the 1960s and 1970s, which have either been removed or covered up by gardens.

"The Islamic Wakf says, 'We are not going to let you dig, but show us any remains of the Temple.' You cannot have it both ways. If you don't allow people to dig, then don't use this absence of remains as an argument.

"Temple denial is a very tragic harnessing of politics to change history. It is not a different interpretation of historical events or archeological evidence. This is something major. I think that Temple denial is more serious and more dangerous than Holocaust denial. Why? Because for the Holocaust there are still living witnesses. There are photographs; there are archives; there are the soldiers who released the prisoners; there are testimonies from the Nazis themselves. There were trials, a whole series of them, starting with Nuremberg. There are people who survived the Holocaust still among us. Concerning the Temple, there are no people among us who remember.

"Still, [to deny the Temples], you have to dismiss the evidence of Flavius Josephus; you have to dismiss the evidence of the Mishna and of the Talmud; and you have to dismiss the writings of Roman and Greek historians who mention the Temple of Jerusalem. And you have to dismiss The Bible. That is, I think, way too much."

The writer has authored or co-authored more than 60 books, primarily in the field of ecumenical Christian non-fiction. Her work includes the recently released biography Baroness Cox: Eyewitness to a Broken World and the award-winning Their Blood Cries Out, co-authored with Paul Marshall. She is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute. (Jerusaelm Post Opinions, August 14, 2008).

Arab agents infiltrate Temple Mount

'Muslim countries vying for influence, expecting Israel to give up holy site'

Posted: June 25, 2008, 9:39 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
(c) 2008 WorldNetDaily

Temple Mount

JERUSALEM - A number of Arab states quietly have sent intelligence agents to infiltrate the Temple Mount to determine how they can obtain more influence over Judaism's holiest site, informed security sources told WND.

"It's possible in the coming two years a deal will be made that transfers the Temple Mount out from Israeli hands," said a security source. "The Arab countries are vying for influence, since they think controlling the site means big prestige in the Muslim world."

The security sources said the Arab agents mostly are attempting to infiltrate the Waqf, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount, securing all sorts of positions from Waqf garden workers through religious clerics inside the Mount's many mosques.

The Waqf is largely controlled by Jordan, which took over top positions from the Palestinian Authority in recent years.

The sources said the agents' primary job is to collect information on how to gain more influence on the site. The agents also are to report on which Waqf officials are paid by Jordan, through which clerics can be suspected of having good relations with Israel.

"The Arab countries want to work their way in so Jordan doesn't get the most control once Israel gives up the Mount," said a security source.

Saudi Arabia sent the most agents to the Mount, but other countries, including Egypt, also sent agents, security sources said. "Don't be surprised if in the near future even Somalia sends some people over to study how to have influence on the Mount," said a security source.

In line with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations started at last November's U.S.-backed Annapolis conference, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is working to create a Palestinian state before the end of the year. Olmert is widely expected to announce Israeli evacuations from most of the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. The Temple Mount is located in eastern Jerusalem, although Israel is not expected to immediately give up the holy site during the initial attempted creation of a Palestinian state.

The Arab countries are "near certain" Israel will eventually evacuate the Temple Mount and likely hand it over to the PA together with a coalition of Muslim states, said an informed security source.

Temple Mount '100 percent Islamic'

Mainstream Palestinian leaders claim the Temple Mount is Muslim in spite of overwhelming archaeological evidence documenting the first and second Jewish temples.

Earlier this month, Rafiq Al Husseini, the chief of staff for PA President Mahmoud Abbas, declared Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and said any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims.

"Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," Husseini said.

In a WND exclusive interview last year, Taysir Tamimi, chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most influential Muslim leaders in Israel, argued the Jewish Temples never existed, the Western Wall really was a tying post for Muhammad's horse, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built by angels, and Abraham, Moses and Jesus were prophets for Islam.

Tamimi is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city, and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the [Temple Mount]," Tamimi said during a sit-down interview in his eastern Jerusalem office.

The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples throughout Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount itself; excavations revealing Jewish homes and a synagogue in a site in Jerusalem called the City of David; or even the recent discovery of a Second Temple Jewish city in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Tamimi said descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged. He contended the Torah was falsified to claim biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when they actually were prophets for Islam.

"All this is not real. We don't believe in all your versions. Your Torah was falsified. The text as given to the Muslim prophet Moses never mentions Jerusalem. Maybe Jerusalem was mentioned in the rest of the Torah, which was falsified by the Jews," said Tamimi.

He said Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus were "prophets for the Israelites sent by Allah as to usher in Islam."

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the Wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years.

"The Western wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah."

The Kotel, or Western Wall, is an outer retaining wall of the Temple Mount that survived the destruction of the Second Temple and still stands today in Jerusalem.

Tamimi went on to claim to WND the Al Aqsa Mosque , which has sprung leaks and has had to be repainted several times, was built by angels. "Al Aqsa was built by the angels 40 years after the building of Al-Haram in Mecca. This we have no doubt is true," he said.

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Temple was the center of religious worship for ancient Israelites. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's presence dwelt. All biblical holidays centered on worship at the Temple. The Temples served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place for Israelites.

According to the Talmud, the world was created from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount. It's believed to be the biblical Mount Moriah, the location where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac.

The Temple Mount has remained a focal point for Jewish services for thousands of years. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed in about A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark what Muslims came to believe was the place at which Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible 656 times. Muslims worldwide pray with their backs away from the Temple Mount and toward Mecca.

Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night on a horse from "a sacred mosque" - believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia - to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque became associated with Jerusalem about 120 years ago.

According to research by Israeli Author Shmuel Berkovits, Islam historically disregarded Jerusalem. Berkovits points out in his new book, "How dreadful is this place!" that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for. He wrote Muhammad made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship and sanctifying only one place - the Kaaba in Mecca - to signify the unity of God.

As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings influenced the Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites are to be found only in the Arabian Peninsula, and that "in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron."

It wasn't until the late 19th century - when Jews started immigrating to Palestine - that some Muslim scholars began claiming Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associated Muhammad's purported night journey with the Temple Mount.

Inevitability of Third Temple
By Anne T. Garcia
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 4:06 PM CDT

As various factions call for peace in the Middle East, observant Jews and Christians ask the same question: When will construction on the Third Temple begin?

This is a hot button issue, with Moslems opposed to any increased Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Still, those in the know understand there will soon be another Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah.

Let's review history. The first Temple, built by Solomon, was dedicated in 960 B.C. and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The second Temple, later called Herod's Temple, was dedicated in 515 B.C. It was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 and the Jews were scattered throughout the earth.

The future Temple must be built on precisely the same spot where the first two stood.

Why? Because God Himself chose the spot, as He spoke to Solomon (pay special attention to the word "place"): "Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever." (2 Chronicles 7:15,16)

However, there is a bit of a problem with the place God chose to be His special place. Namely, it has been occupied by the Arabs for the past 1,300 years.

Traditionally, scholars have held the Dome of the Rock hovers over God's special place and will have to go to make room for the Third Temple. How would the Jews be able to build on Islam's third holiest site?

Several possibilities could be considered:

--The Arabs could disassemble the Dome of the Rock and reassemble it on Arab property--not likely.

--The Dome might fall via a so-called "act of God," such as an earthquake.

--A military conflict might destroy the edifice, a possibility the Israelis studiously avoid.

The question remains, how can the Jews build a Temple on the site where Mohammad allegedly ascended into heaven to visit with Allah?

Within the last generation a fourth possible scenario has emerged. Could it be that the Dome of the Rock is not the exact location of the previous Temples? Is it possible that the solution is for the Temple and the Dome to stand side by side on the Temple Mount?

In the 1980s Dr. Asher Kaufman, professor of physics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, suggested an alternate site for the two previous Temples. He believes the Temples may have been located northward, where the Islamic "Dome of the Tablets" now stands.

Then about seven years ago Tel Aviv architect Tuvia Sagiv proposed a southern site for the earlier Temples. In his thinking the Temples were located east of the Western Wall, where the El Kas fountain stands.

It will probably require archeological digs to determine the correct spot. This is implausible in the present political milieu. But if there is a peace deal, then it may be time.

Some argue it wouldn't be fitting to put a Temple next to a structure dedicated to Allah. Yet the Book of Revelation implies this may be how it is actually going to work out.

Notice that in Revelation 11 John is given a measuring rod and instructed to measure the Third Temple: "Rise and measure the Temple of God, the altar and those who worship there. But leave out the court which is outside the Temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the gentiles." (Revelation 11:1,2)

Clearly from this passage we see the Temple next to a gentile presence on the Temple Mount. Are we on the cusp of the fulfillment of a major prophecy? We are living in the most exciting time since Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago.

Anne T. Garcia's television show, "Understanding the End of the Age" can be accessed on Direct TV every Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on channel 376 and 1 p.m. on channel 377. For more information, or to contact her go to fromthehidden.com.
http://monroecountyclarion.stltoday.com/articles/2008/04/08/opinions/doc47fbc4a63990f519030828.txt

First-Ever: First-Temple Building Remains Found Near Temple Mount

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Antiquities Authority announces the first time in the history of the archaeological research of Jerusalem that building remains from the First Temple period have been exposed so close to the Temple Mount--on the eastern slopes of the Upper City.

A rich layer of finds from the latter part of the First Temple period (8th-6th centuries B.C.E.) has been discovered in archaeological rescue excavations near the Western Wall plaza. The dig is being carried out in the northwestern part of the Western Wall plaza, near the staircase leading up towards the Jaffa Gate.

The Israel Antiquties Authority has been conducting the excavations for the past two years under the direction of archaeologists Shlomit Wexler-Bdoulah and Alexander Onn, in cooperation with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. The remains of a magnificent colonnaded street [i.e., lined by columns] from the 2nd century C.E. were uncovered; the street appears on the mosaic Madaba map, and is referred to by the name Eastern Cardo. The level of the Eastern Cardo is paved with large heavy limestone pavers that were set directly atop the layer that dates to the end of the First Temple period. This Roman road thus "seals" beneath it the finds from the First Temple period, protecting them from being plundered in later periods.

The walls of the buildings found in the dig are preserved to a height of more than two meters.

Ring Seal Found, Inscribed with Owner's Name

Another impressive artifact found in the salvage excavations is a personal Hebrew seal made of a semi-precious stone that was apparently inlaid in a ring. The seal is elliptical and measures approximately 1 by 1.4 centimeters.

The seal's surface is divided into three strips separated by a double line: in the upper strip is a chain decoration comprising four pomegranates, and in the two bottom strips is the name of the owner of the seal, engraved in ancient Hebrew script. It reads: "[Belonging] to Netanyahu ben [son of] Yaush." Though each of the two names are not unfamiliar, no one with that name is known to scholars of the period.

A vast amount of pottery vessels was also discovered, among them three jar handles that bear similar stamped impressions. An inscription written in ancient Hebrew script is preserved on one these impressions, reading "Belonging] to the King of Hevron."

Note: These finds are particularly important in that Muslims are stepping up their program of historical revisionism and denying that there ever was a temple in Jerusalem.

Arab leader denies temple ever existed

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 10, 2008
www.jpost.com

The al-Aqsa mosque was never the site of a Jewish temple, Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, said Monday during a press conference he convened in Jerusalem to respond to voices calling for the expulsion of Israeli residents of the city who participate in terror activities against Israel.

"Those calling for the expulsion of Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem are hysterical and stupid and belong in the trash can," Salah said at the conference. He went on to deny any Israeli or Jewish historical claim to the city, denying that there ever existed a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount.

"The claims of the Jews are big lies and they have no right to any speck of dust here," he said.

Israel, he claimed, was carrying out extensive digs under al-Aqsa mosque, and was hiding destructive tunnels under the compound which had already caused damage to the mosque and several houses in the Muslim Quarter.

"I think that we are at a critical time. We believe that al-Aqsa is in danger and that it is under occupation, and we believe that Jerusalem is in danger because it is under occupation," Salah said. "Jerusalem is not only houses - it is faith, it is history, it is a culture, it is a present, a future and an eternal right that we will not relinquish."

In January, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz filed an indictment against Salah, charging him with incitement to violence and racism in a speech he made last year protesting the archeological dig carried out at the Old City's Mughrabi Gate.

During his sermon in Jerusalem's Wadi Joz neighborhood on February 16 of last year, Salah urged supporters to start a third intifada in order to "save al-Aksa Mosque, free Jerusalem and end the occupation."

Salah's speech also attacked Jews, saying, "They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks. Our blood has passed from one 'general terrorist' to another 'general terrorist.'"

He also said, "We are not those who ate bread dipped in children's blood."

Former mufti: Western Wall was never part of Jewish temple

Mike Seid , THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 25, 2007

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380646406&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The former mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, has made the claim that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall was really part of a mosque.

"There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa [the mosque compound] and there is no proof that there was ever a temple," he told The Jerusalem Post via a translator. "Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aksa if there were a temple there for others beforehand."

Sabri rejected Judaism's claim to the Western Wall as part of the outer wall of the Second Temple.

"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque," he said. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews."

Asked if Jews would ever be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount under Muslim control, he replied: "It is not the Temple Mount, you must say Al-Aksa. And no Jews have the right to pray at the mosque. It was always only a mosque - all 144 dunams, the entire area. No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aksa. Everyone knows that."

"Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple, but they dug there and they found nothing," Sabri added.

Archeologists overseeing Islamic infrastructure work on the Mount announced this week that they had unveiled a sealed archeological level dating back to the First Temple period.

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century BCE, and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Second Temple was built 70 years later, enlarged during the first century BCE by Herod, and destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.

The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque were constructed on the Temple Mount site in the late seventh century.

The controversial issue of the holy sites is expected to come up during negotiations ahead of a US-sponsored summit on the Middle East in Annapolis later this year.

Palestinian leaders, most notably the late Yasser Arafat, have consistently denied Jewish claims to the Mount.

Sabri made the comments in an interview with the Post's Friday supplement, In Jerusalem, for a cover story on how religious leaders view the capital.

Archeologists find link to First Temple era

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Tell the Editors - JTA News

Published: 10/21/2007

Israeli archeologists say they have stumbled upon a sealed archeological level dating to the First Temple period.

The discovery at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, where the archeologists are overseeing contested Islamic infrastructure work, was announced Sunday by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The find marks the first time that archeological remains dating back to the First Temple period have been found on the bitterly contested holy site, the state-run archeological body said. The Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is the holiest site of Judaism and the third holiest site for Islam.

The sealed archeological level, which dates from the eighth to the sixth centuries B.C.E., includes fragments of ceramic table wares and animal bone.

Independent Israeli archeologists from the nonpartisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which repeatedly has lambasted the Antiquities Authority for allowing Islamic officials to carry out the infrastructure work this summer, downplayed the findings. -- http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104790.html

Quarry for Temple Mount's Giant Rocks - Found

by Hillel Fendel

The Antiquities Authority announced today that it has found the quarry that supplied the giant stones for the building of the Temple Mount. The quarry is located in what is now one of Jerusalem's newest neighborhoods, Ramat Shlomo (also known as Reches Shuafat), between Ramot and French Hill. The quarry was found in the course of an archaeological rescue dig prior to the construction of a neighborhood school.

The ancient quarry is spread out over at least five dunams (1.25 acres), with rocks between three and eight meters long - the size of those that can still be seen today at the foundations of the Temple Mount and in the Western Wall - hewn out of the ground. Click here for photos of the quarry on the Israel Matzav blog.

Divine Regards

Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem told Arutz-7 that the discovery of the quarry was both historically dramatic and spiritually exhilarating: "Precisely now, when the Moslems are trying to erase all vestiges of the presence of our Holy Temple, and when even among our own leaders there is a trend towards giving it away and viewing it as an unnecessary burden - precisely now, with this discovery, G-d is sending the Jewish People a kiss, as if to say, 'Don't worry, I haven't forgotten you; there are those who want to give it [the Temple Mount] away or take it away from you, but I still have big plans for both you and for the Holy Temple - and the Temple will yet become the focal point of the world once again."

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky has ordered a halt to the school-building plans, budgeting 350,000 shekels ($86,500) for the archaeological work.

Jerusalem archaeologist Yuval Baruch told Arutz-7 that the ancient hewing was done in stages. First, deep and narrow trenches were dug around the four sides of what was to be the rock. Then, dozens of small specially-shaped picks were used to make holes underneath, at a distance of several centimeters from each other, until the rock was able to be separated from the ground. Archaeologists found one such pick in the area - a 15-centimeter (6-inch) long metallic object.

Gideon Charlap, a top Jerusalem architect and Temple Mount expert, told Arutz-7 that while rocks for the Temple may not be hewn with iron on the Temple Mount, iron may be used on the rocks before they reach the Mount. This, as opposed to stones used for the Temple's altar, which are never permitted to be hewn with iron.

The rulers of ancient Jerusalem used top-quality, shining-white stone for their public buildings, of the type they called Malcha (from the word for royalty). Dozens of quarries have been discovered in and around Jerusalem over the years, Baruch said, "including some from the period of Herod, like this one. However, never before has one been found with such large rocks."

The Shuafat mountain is some 80 meters higher than the Temple Mount. That, and its proximity to the main road to Jerusalem from the north, made this quarry a prime candidate to provide the rocks to be used in the city's important buildings. Teams of oxen pulled the giant stones down the moderate incline towards the city. The rocks were then placed upon the bedrock, forming the foundation of the Temple Mount, and keeping it stable and firm without the use of concrete even up until today.

Coins and pottery were also found in the quarry, dating back 1,900 years - further evidence that this quarry was used during the height of construction in ancient Jerusalem.

Ancient Drainage Tunnel and Escape Route Found

Earlier this month, the Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of the City of David's main drainage channel - later used by Jerusalem residents when they tried to flee from the Romans. The channel is located along the route from the Temple Mount to the Shiloah Pool, and apparently continues on to Nahal Kidron on its way to the Dead Sea. It drained the rainfall of ancient Jerusalem - the Jewish quarter, the western region of the City of David, and the Temple Mount. The excavations were jointly carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Elad Association.

The excavation directors wrote, "There is evidence in the writings of Josephus Flavius, the historian who described the revolt, the conquest and the destruction of Jerusalem, that numerous people took shelter in the channel and even lived in it for a period until they succeeded to flee the city through its southern end."

ZOA: OLMERT GOVERNMENT MUST STOP DESTRUCTION OF JEWISH ANTIQUITIES ON JERUSALEM'S TEMPLE MOUNT BY MUSLIM AUTHORITIES

New York -- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has written to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urging him to immediately take action to stop the wanton destruction of priceless Jewish antiquities on Jerusalem's Temple Mount by the Waqf, the Muslim religious authorities who control the Temple Mount area. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, but of lesser significance to Muslims than Mecca and Medina. Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible, but not even once in Quran. When Jordan controlled the Temple Mount between 1948 and 1967, no Arab leader other than King Hussein of Jordan visited the mosques there; 58 synagogues, however, were destroyed. In recent days, reports indicate that the Islamic Waqf's desecration and destruction of the Temple Mount has intensified. The Waqf, which is digging a trench five feet deep and some 150 yards long for the laying of electrical cables and water pipes, is using a mechanical digger, cutting through the subsoil and piling it up beside the trench. Israeli archaeologists say such material should be carefully sifted and documented, as it would be even at sites of far lesser significance than this most sensitive Jewish religious and cultural location.

New photographs of the work zone show carved stones casually dumped in a pile that appear to be a section of the outer wall of the Second Temple, according to archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar. Mazar, a member of the faculty at Hebrew University and a member of the Public Committee for Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, says it is "crucial this wall is inspected." She explains that the current ground level of the Temple Mount is slightly above the original Temple Mount platform, "meaning anything found is likely from the Temple itself." Mazar insists that she must personally inspect the stones to confirm their status, and attempted to inspect the site last week. She was stopped by Israeli police who are protecting the construction.

The Israel Antiquities Authority approved the construction despite archaeologists' concern that precious artifacts are being destroyed. The Authority, which digs for religious artifacts across the State of Israel, has not inspected construction on Judaism's holiest site even once since the work began, despite continuous calls for the construction to be supervised and halted. English spokesman for the Israeli Police, Mickey Rosenfeld, asserts that the police stationed on the Temple Mount will not prevent the construction because the Antiquities Authority approved the dig. The Waqf denies any wrong-doing and says that the Temple Mount is in "occupied territory."

Dr. Gabriel Barkai, of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount calls it an act of barbarism. "They are digging in the most crucial and delicate point of the Temple Mount - of the whole country. They should be using a toothbrush, not a bulldozer." Dr Barkai identifies the area currently under excavation as the outer courts of the Second Temple, built by Herod the Great in the First Century BCE. He maintains it is where the best preservation of antiquities was anticipated, since other parts of the compound are built on exposed bedrock ( BBC News, August 28).

According to Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, the Waqf is intentionally digging in areas where "undoubtedly the Temple once stood . For the first time since the Temple's destruction, a section of the Temple Wall itself has been exposed and the Waqf under the guise of laying down electrical pipes has dug a trench, destroying the most important holy artifact ever found to date" (One Jerusalem, September 2).

This is but the latest episode in archeological vandalism beneath Temple Mount committed by the Waqf:

In 1970, the Waqf excavated a pit without supervision that exposed a 16-foot-long, six-foot-thick wall that scholars believe may well be the eastern wall of the Herodian Temple complex. An inspector from the antiquities department saw it and composed a handwritten report (still unpublished) before the wall was dismantled, destroyed and covered up.

In 1993, Israel's Supreme Court found that the Waqf had violated Israel's antiquities laws on 35 occasions, many involving irreversible destruction of important archaeological remains. The court declined to enter an injunction, however, expressing its confidence that in the future Israeli authorities would correct their past errors.

In 1999, to accommodate a major expansion of an underground mosque into what is known popularly as Solomon's Stables in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount, the Waqf dug an enormous stairway down to the mosque. Hundreds of truckloads of archaeologically rich dirt were dug with mechanical equipment and then dumped into the adjacent Kidron Valley. When archaeology student Zachi Zweig began to explore the mounds of dirt for antiquities, he was arrested at the behest of the Israel Antiquities Authority -- for excavating without a permit. Since then, a major legal sifting operation of this dirt by Professor Gabriel Barkai of Bar Ilan University (together with Mr. Zweig) has uncovered thousands of artifacts from all periods going back more than 3,000 years. They include a seal impression of a probable brother of someone mentioned in the Bible, Babylonian arrowheads dating to the destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C. (as well as other arrowheads from battles on the Temple Mount), thousands of coins (many dating to the Great Revolt against Rome), beautiful jewelry and even an ancient Egyptian scarab.

The Palestinian Arabs, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), have a long record of desecrating and destroying Jewish religious sites and denying the Jewish historical and religious connection to Jerusalem and Israel.

Statement on Jewish holy sites by PA leaders:

Yasser Arafat: "That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine" (Ma'ariv, October. 11, 1996).

Then PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Hassan Tahboub, "The Western Wall is Muslim property. It is part of the al-Aqsa Mosque. Once we control it, Jews must remain six feet away from our holy wall" (November 23, 1997).

PA Ministry of Information: Thirty years of Israeli excavation has revealed Islamic holy places, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins, but no tangible evidence of anything Jewish was revealed in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jews have implanted a biblical myth in the mind of the world," (December 12, 1997).

Walid M. Awad, Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO's Palestine Ministry of Information: " Jerusalem was never a Jewish city" (IMRA news agency, December. 25, 1996).

Jarid al-Kidwa, a Palestinian 'historian' broadcast in the PA media, has stated, "The stories of the Torah and the Bible did not take place in the Land of Israel - they occurred in the Arabian peninsula, primarily in Yemen" (Ha'aretz, July 6, 1997).

Jewish holy sites have been destroyed, vandalized or left in disrepair by the Palestinians whenever PA control has been extended, even temporarily, to localities containing them:

In September 1996, widespread Arab rioting broke out in response to false rumors circulated about alleged Jewish efforts to undermine the structure of the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian rioters set upon and destroyed the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva at Joseph Tomb in Nablus, also killing Israeli soldiers trying to guard it. 500 Arabs also stormed Rachel's Tomb, the third holiest Jewish site, firing weapons and hurling Molotov cocktails and torching the scaffolding of new construction on the site, which was saved only due to determined efforts under fire by fire-fighting units.

October 2000: During the first days of the Palestinian terrorist campaign, Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was entirely destroyed by a Palestinian mob of 5,000 and its contents incinerated after the Israeli garrison guarding it was temporarily withdrawn during fighting. It has since been rebuilt by the PA - as a mosque supposedly honoring a Muslim figure. Muslims assert exclusive right to the site and Jews have been unable to re-enter it.

October 2000: The ancient Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho, rediscovered only after the 1967 war, was completely and deliberately destroyed, though its Torah scrolls were saved. The Na'aran synagogue in Jericho, which is believed to have been built in the 5th or 6th century, and which contains a mosaic floor, is now abandoned and derelict.

Moreover, Jewish worshippers at Jerusalem's Western Wall have more than once been the target of stones and other projectiles from the Temple Mount in recent years, most recently in February 2007, when Palestinians rioted on the fabricated pretext that Israeli excavation work taking place nearly 100 yards from the mosques on Temple Mount for the purpose of replacing a bridge in danger of collapse were threatening the mosques. Also, sporadic gunfire is routinely directed today at Rachel's Tomb, where a special fortification with guard towers has had to be constructed around it for its protection. Several soldiers guarding the site have been killed over the years.

In its letter, signed by ZOA National President Morton A. Klein, Chairman of the Board Dr. Michael Goldblatt, Chairman of Executive Committee Dr. Alan Mazurek, and Treasurer Henry Schwartz, Executive Director Stanley Kessock and Director of the ZOA's Center for Middle East Policy Dr. Daniel Mandel, the ZOA said, "It is imperative for the preservation of literally the holiest site in the world to Judaism and of world significance to civilization, as well as for the long term interests of Israel, that the government put an immediate stop to the desecration and destruction of priceless Jewish antiquities on the Temple Mount. No digging with heavy machinery should ever be taking place at such a site, which surely demands, at a minimum, the usual safeguards, care and archeological supervision that would be applied in excavating any other site of even minor archeological significance. It is an act of sacrilege and archeological vandalism that irreversible destruction is proceeding at this very moment at Judaism's holiest site. We urge you most earnestly to intervene while there is still time to prevent this historic loss to Israel, the Jewish people and indeed the world."

In addition, the ZOA has made the following public statement: "The ZOA urges every rabbis of every synagogue in America and around the world, and every Jewish organization, to speak out forcefully and repeatedly to urge Israel's Prime Minister and all Muslims of goodwill to stop this destruction of holy and priceless Jewish artifacts under the Temple Mount where Judaism's two holy temples once existed."

Jews urging Christians to save Jewish Temple - By Aaron Klein - www.worldnetdaily.com

Archaeologists kept out as Israel allows Muslims to pulverize antiquities at Judaism's holiest site

JERUSALEM - The Christian world and top U.S. Christian leaders are being urged to petition the Israeli government to immediately halt a massive dig Islamic authorities are conducting on the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site - that is said to be destroying antiquities and what archaeologists believe is a wall from the Second Jewish Temple.

The Israeli government has barred archaeologists from inspecting the Temple-era wall, believed to be from the outer courtyard of the Second Temple.

The wall reportedly has been pulverized by bulldozers operated by the Waqf, the Mount's Muslim custodians.

If verified, the wall would be the most significant Jewish Temple find in history.

"The Christian people must rise up and stand with their brethren in Israel and make their voices heard to stop this travesty," states an open letter from Israel's Temple Institute, an organization seeking to promote awareness of the Temple Mount. "We are asking Christians to do everything possible to petition the Israeli government to halt the Waqf destruction and have archaeologists immediately inspect the area."

The Temple Institute is asking concerned Christians to contact Olmert's office.

"As a result of destructive and wanton bulldozing by the Waqf - with Israeli permission - a section of the wall of the Holy Temple in the area universally recognized as the location of the Women's Court has been unearthed," the letter states. "This is the first time since the destruction of the Second Temple that actual physical evidence of the Temple has been revealed. But all of the antiquities of the Temple that have been uncovered are in danger of being destroyed if you don't help."

Leading Israeli archaeologists, speaking to WND, also urged the Christian world to act immediately:

"The Christian world and all those who care about safeguarding the Temple Mount must immediately join us in our efforts to protect the holy site and demand that the Israeli government stop the Waqf construction," prominent, third-generation Temple Mount archaeologist Eilat Mazar said.

"The Temple Mount is important to people of all religions. Now is the time to act before more antiquities are erased," said Mazar, a senior fellow at Israel's Shalem Center and member of the Public Committee for Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on Temple Mount.

Mazar's much-discussed discovery in the City of David, a neighborhood just south of Jerusalem's Old City Walls, is a massive building that dates to the 10th century BC is believed is the remains of the palace of the biblical King David, the second leader of a united Kingdom of Israel, who ruled from around 1005 to 965 B.C.

This weekend, Islamic authorities using heavy machinery to dig on the Temple Mount were caught red-handed by WND destroying Temple-era antiquities and the purported outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple.

Last month, they were given permission by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to use bulldozers and other heavy equipment to dig a massive trench they say is necessary to replace electrical cables outside mosques on the holy site. The dig, which extends to most of the periphery of the Mount, is being protected by the Israeli police and is supposed to be supervised by the Israeli government's Antiquities Authority.

Earlier this month, after bulldozers dug a trench 1,300 feet long and five feet deep, the Muslim diggers came across a wall Israeli archaeologists believe may be remains of an area of the Second Jewish Temple known as the woman's courtyard.

The Antiquities Authority has not halted the dig and has not inspected the site. The Waqf has continued using bulldozers to blast away at the trench containing the wall and has steadfastly denied it is destroying any antiquities.

But WND obtained a photograph of the massive Waqf trench. In view in the picture are concrete slabs broken by Waqf bulldozers and a chopped up carved stone believed to be of Jewish Temple-era antiquity.

Mazar analyzed the photo and said the damaged stone displays elements of the second Temple era and might be part of the Jewish Temple wall Israeli archaeologists charge the Waqf has been attempting to destroy. She said in order to certify the stone in the photo, she would need to personally inspect it.

But Israel is blocking leading archaeologists from surveying the massive damage Islamic authorities are accused of causing to what may be the outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple.

"The Antiquities Authority tells us to coordinate with the police. The police send us back to the Antiquities Authority," said Mazar.

The Antiquities Authority did not return repeated requests for comment.

"It's crucial this wall is inspected. The Temple Mount ground level is only slightly above the original Temple Mount platform, meaning anything found is likely from the Temple itself," the archaeologist said.

Fed up, Mazar and other top archaeologists last week ascended the Mount to hold a news conference and inspect the site without government permission, but they were blocked from the trench by the Israeli police.

"It is unconscionable that the Israeli government is permitting the Waqf to use heavy equipment to chop away at the most important archaeological site in the country without supervision," Mazar said.

"The Israeli government is actively blocking us from inspecting the site and what may be a monumental find and is doing nothing while the Waqf destroys artifacts at Judaism's holiest site," she said.

Mount destruction 'attempt to undermine God's sovereignty'

In his group's letter to the Christian world today, Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the international department at Israel's Temple Institute, pointed out what he said was the significant of the Islamic dig on the Temple Mount.

To understand the Waqf destruction as merely an archaeological issue would be myopic. It would also be a mistake to consider these actions as nothing more than a heartless and cruel attack against another religion and culture. These atrocities are not being committed solely against the Jewish people and their traditions. This is an attack on humankind by enemies of the God of Israel

Aside from the political implications regarding the future of Jerusalem and the direct effect that this will have on the entire world, the spiritual implications of what is now transpiring are enormous. The Bible consistently emphasizes the centrality of the Holy Temple in the life of mankind; it is none other than the 'footstool' of God in the world.

The destruction of God's holy mountain is precisely what is taking place at this very moment under our very eyes. The purposeful destruction of remnants of the Holy Temple are an attempt to undermine God's sovereignty and to erase His name from the one place on earth that He has chosen to manifest His presence throughout the saga of human history.

Richman called the Temple Mount "central to humanity."

"Our sages teach us that Adam, the first man, was created from the spot of the altar in the Holy Temple. All of Adam's descendants - the family of man who are created in the Divine image - are therefore under attack."

Richman was among those on the Mount last week with Mazar. He told WND he attempted to take pictures of the damage the bulldozers are allegedly wrecking on the wall, but his digital camera was confiscated by Israeli police at the direction of Waqf officials.

"If Israel was building a shopping mall and they found what may be an ancient Buddhist structure, the government would stop the construction and have archaeologists go over the area with a fine tooth comb. Here, the holiest site in Judaism is being damaged, a Temple wall was found, and Israel is actively blocking experts from inspecting the site while allowing the destruction to continue," Richman said.

Richman charged the Waqf was "trying to erase Jewish vestiges from the Temple Mount."

The last time the Waqf conducted a large dig on the Temple Mount - during construction 10 years ago of a massive mosque at an area referred to as Solomon's Stables - the Wafq reportedly disposed truckloads of dirt containing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.

After the media reported the disposals, Israeli authorities froze the construction permit given to the Wafq, and the dirt was transferred to Israeli archaeologists for analysis. The Israeli authorities found scores of Jewish Temple relics in the nearly disposed dirt, including coins with Hebrew writing referencing the Temple, part of a Hasmonean lamp, several other Second Temple lamps, Temple period pottery with Jewish markings, a marble pillar shaft and other Temple period artifacts. The Waqf was widely accused of attempting to hide evidence of the existence of the Jewish Temples.

Temples 'never existed'

Most Palestinian leaders routinely deny well-documented Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed."

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archaeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city, and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples, tunnels that snake under the Temple Mount and more than 100 ritual immersion pools believed to have been used by Jewish priests to cleanse themselves before services. The cleansing process is detailed in the Torah.

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years.

"The Western Wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah."

The Palestinian media also regularly claim the Jewish Temples never existed.

Judaism's holiest site

While the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, Muslims say it is their third holiest site.

The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt. The Dome of the Rock now sits on the site and the Al Aqsa Mosque is adjacent.

The temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays.

The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark where Muslims came to believe Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" - believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia - to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

Myths About Israel and Palestine

by Dr. Thomas Ice - www.pre-trib.org

The top story in the media has been the ongoing saga of the so-called "peace process" between Israel and the Arabs, popularly known as "Palestinians." This, of course, is not surprising to those of us who take a literal view of Bible prophecy, since Israel is at the center of imminent future events. However, I am constantly annoyed by the steady stream of myths and propaganda that streams from the global media, often misinforming the world about the modern land of Israel. This month I want to demythologize a number of popular notions about the Land of Israel, so that prophecy-loving believers may not be taken in by what they hear and see in today's media.

The Ancient Palestinians

Perhaps the most maddening term that I hear today is related to the term "Palestinian." Let me start by providing a history of that word. It was a term invented by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in a.d. 135 after he had destroyed Jerusalem during a campaign to put down a Jewish uprising known as the Bar Kokhba revolt. Hadrian was tired of the constant revolts by the Jews in the land of Israel so he set out to "de-Judaize" Israel. This he did by renaming Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and he renamed the Land of Israel Palestine from the word Philistine, a reference to the ancient Canaanites. Palestine became the common term that many used to refer to the biblical land of Israel. During the early 1900s and before 1948, a Palestinian was always thought to be a Jew who lived in the land of Israel, of course, popularly known as Palestine. When Israel became a nation in 1948, the Jews took the biblical term Israel to refer to the reborn nation. Some time between 1948 and 1963, the Egyptian, Yasser Arafat took the term Palestine to refer to the Arab claim of the land of Israel. Thus, it was only around 1963 that the term Palestinian began to be used of Arabs. There is no such thing as the ancient land of Palestine. It is the ancient land of Israel.

Because of the contemporary use of the term "Palestine," I think it is best that Christians refrain from using it to refer to the land of Israel. This is how Israel is usually referred to, even in biblical maps from the time of Christ and before, when the term was not invented until 100 years after the time of Christ. This is why in our newly produced Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible we insisted upon using the term "Israel" when referencing the land of Israel. We did not call it Palestine. The only real Palestine I know of is a town in East Texas with that name.

The Palestinian Right of Return

In light of what I noted in the previous section, it follows that the so-called Palestinian "right of return" is a key element in Arafat's position in the Oslo Peace Process. This is one of the few issues that current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has not caved in on, . . . at least not yet. Arafat claims that there are about four million Arabs and their descendants who were displaced by Israel in 1948. This is a most ridiculous claim. First of all, only about 200,000 Arabs left their homes in the land of Israel.[1] Few, if any, of these Arabs "refugees" were forced out by the Israelis. Instead, "The Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone," notes Samuel Katz. "The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always wit the same reassurance-that their departure would help in the war against Israel."[2]

After the 1948 war, Arab leaders refused to settle these refugees, even though hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab lands with only the shirt on their backs.[3] In fact, based upon conservative estimates, at least two times more Jews were made refugees from the countries in which they lived and have now been settled in the land of Israel without the need for refugee camps that the Arabs are so famous for constructing for their people. Lately, Arafat has been demanding four to five billion dollars as reparations for the so-called "Palestinian refugees," while no one has brought up the fact that the Jews left behind in their country of origin billions of dollars worth of property. Where is the outcry for Jewish compensation?

Instead of settling Arabs who left Israel in 1948 in other Arab countries, Arab leaders have consistently insisted that they remain huddled together in the squalor of refugee camps in various locations throughout the Middle East. Joan Peters noted in 1984:

Over the last thirty-odd year, numerous projects have been proposed, international funds provided, studies undertaken, all indicating the benefits that could be derived by the Arab refugee from their absorption into the brethren cultures of the Arab host countries.[4]

Yet Arab leaders always reject any solution that might serve to solve the problem. Even though the Arab refugees number only in the hundreds of thousands, others have successfully exchanged many times that number. Peters notes that, "The exchange between India and Pakistan in the 1950s was overwhelming in magnitude: 8,500,000 Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan fled to India, and roughly 6,500,000 Muslims moved from India to Pakistan."[5] The fact that "from 1933 to 1945, a total of 79,200,000 souls were displaced," is staggering. But all but the Arab refugees from Israel have not been able to find a place of settlement. Why? Because the long-term Arab goal is not peaceful co-existence with Israel, but a total annihilation of every Jew and the modern nation of Israel. This reality is why it is foolish for Israel to continue the Oslo Peace Process.

David and Goliath

During the so-called "Temple Mount Intifada" we have seen a blatant example of Arab manipulation of the media in the incident of the death of the twelve-year old Arab boy named Mohammed. The world's media captured the sad death of Mohammed in a crossfire between Arabs and Israelis. The video footage revealed the boy being shot and dying in his father's arms. The immediate outcry from the global media was how the evil Israelis (the bully Goliath) were picking on the poor defenseless Arabs (David). The media assumed and then reported that Mohammed was shot by the Israeli army. Few asked what the boy was doing there in the first place. Few noted that Mohammed's father had come to get him because he had gone to throw rocks at the Israeli army. But, most significantly, it was reported in the alternative media that there were questions about whether the Israelis were even in position to have shot the boy. A later investigation has proved that it was impossible for the Israeli soldiers to have shot him since they could not have hit him since they were not in position to have the right angle to get to him. It is now clear that the Arabs shot one of their own, apparently for propaganda purposes. They cared more about sending out to the global media a certain image than they did about the life of that twelve-year old boy. This kind of thing is all too common in the battle for truth in the propaganda wars coming out of Israel in our day. In fact, established reports have revealed that the Saudi Arabian government is paying $2,000.00 to the family members of each Arab killed in the current Intifada and $300.00 for each non-fatal wound. This is most revealing when one realizes that Muslims believe that they are guaranteed to go to heaven if they die during the current conflict. Boy are they in for an immediate surprise. This is probably the most blatant propaganda piece of the entire conflict.

The Temple Mount

Another classic instance of Arab lying that has come out in the media recently is their widely held belief that there has never been a Jewish Temple upon the Temple Mount (Arabs call it Al-Qods-Al-Sharif) in Jerusalem. Randall Price and I noted this in our book, Ready To Rebuild, in the early 1990s. This belief, coupled with the equally errant lie, that the place of Mohammed's supposed ascent into heaven occurred on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This was a later myth added to the lore of Islam as time went on and they became engaged in a rivalry with Christianity and Judaism, both of whom had a rich history of events that transpired in Jerusalem. Islam had none.

The question arises that if there never was a Jewish Temple upon the Temple Mount, then where did Jesus walk in New Testament times? What a crook! There is more historical and archaeological evidence supporting the historicity of the Bible's report that there were two Jewish Temples upon the Temple Mount in Jerusalem than is needed to accept any fact of antiquity. Yet, this does not seem to phase the Muslim faithful. If there was no Temple upon the Temple Mount then what did Josephus write about when he records the destruction of the Jewish Temple in a.d. 70. This kind of outright lying is revealing about the whole Islamic religion: It does not care about the truth, only propaganda. Thus, we should not be surprised, I am not, at the lengths to which too many Arabs will go in our own day as they spin Middle Eastern events to the global media. But, as lovers of the truth, Christians should not fall for these Arab distortions.

Conclusion

As believers in God and His Word, we should not be surprised that Satan and the world system is anti-Israel. We should also not be surprised that in spite of the justness of Israel's cause that the international media echoes Satan's voice, instead of God's. Israel is God's elect nation and He works out a major aspect of His plan for history through them. Therefore, the least that believers should do is not be taken in by the myths and propaganda from the world's media. To help towards this end I want to recommend some excellent books that will provide an interested person with factual information.

In spite of all the current bias against Israel we know what the end of the matter will be. Yes, Israel will exist for all eternity, while he enemies will be judged at Armageddon. It helps in the present time to know the God who has told us the end from the beginning. Maranatha!

Endnotes:

[1] Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 4th edition (New York: Steimatzky and Shaplolsky, 1985), p. 14.

[2] Katz, Battleground, p. 13.

[3] Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: J. KAP Publishing, 1984), pp. 11-32,

[4] Peters, From Time Immemorial, p. 19.

[5] Peters, From Time Immemorial, p. 26.

Muslims desecrating Israel's Temple Mount - again

By Stan Goodenough
Jul 12, 2007

Muslim Arabs, with the blessing of the Israeli government, are digging a large tunnel between the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

These two large structures straddle the Temple Mount - Israel's holiest site.

According to World Net Daily reporter Aaron Klein, the Arabs are bringing in heavy earth-moving equipment that could cause serious damage to the sacred site.

Klein says no-one is supervising what the Muslims are doing - despite the fact that Waqf (Islamic Trust) officials in recent years have desecrated the mount and destroyed untold quantities of archeological remains and artefacts dating from the periods of Israel's first and second temples.

Both temples stood on the site, identified in the Bible as Mount Moriah where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac.

The first temple was built by Israel's King Solomon; the second by the Jewish exiles who returned from exile in Babylon. It was later beautified and expanded by Herod the Great.

Israel returned to the Mount in 1967, but failed to extend its authority over it, prefering - at the urging of leftist Defense Minister Moshe Dayan - to leave the Islamic structures intact and allow the Waqf to continue supervising the site.

The Waqf forbids Jews and Christians from praying and reading their Bibles on the Temple Mount. Israel's governments have for years helped reinforce that ban.

As cited in Klein's article, numerous Arab leaders and spokesmen reject outright the uncontestable evidence, and refute the fact that Israel's temples ever stood on the hill. --http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2041.

Olmert allows Muslims to dig on Temple Mount
Islamic custodians previously disposed of truckloads of Jewish artifacts

By Aaron Klein
c2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Posted: July 11, 2007

Temple Mount

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has quietly granted the Waqf - the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount - permission to dig unsupervised on the sacred site, WND has learned.

The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs.

The last time the Waqf conducted an unsupervised excavation on the Temple Mount, in 1997, the Muslim custodians ultimately were caught by Israeli authorities disposing truckloads of Mount dirt that contained Jewish Temple artifacts.

Most Palestinian leaders routinely deny well-documented Jewish ties to the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism.

According to Palestinian sources, the Waqf last month requested permission from Israel to conduct what it said were needed excavations under the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount to install new electrical and telephone infrastructures in the mosque. Olmert's office at first turned down the Waqf request, but after petitioning by the Jordanian government, the prime minister acquiesced and has allowed the dig.

The Waqf this week quietly began digging a massive tunnel that snakes from the Al Aqsa Mosque to the nearby Dome of the Rock, bringing in heavy equipment for the work.

According to Israeli and Palestinian sources, the dig is not being supervised by any Jewish archeologist, including from the Israeli government's Antiquities Authority, which boasts a board of leading Israeli Temple Mount archeological authorities.

No supervision

Prominent Temple Mount archeologist Eilat Mazar, a professor of Hebrew University and a member of the Public Committee for Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on Temple Mount, slammed the Waqf dig.

Mazar said she was concerned the Muslims were excavating "without real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation."

Mazar, a third-generation Israeli Temple Mount archaeologist, is the discoverer and lead archaeologist of Israel's City of David, believed to be the palace of the biblical King David, the second leader of a united Kingdom of Israel, who ruled from around 1005 to 965 B.C.

The last time the Waqf conducted a large dig on the Temple Mount, during construction 10 years ago of a massive mosque at an area referred to as Solomon's Stables, the Wafq reportedly disposed truckloads of dirt containing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods.

After the media reported on the disposals, Israeli authorities froze the construction permit given to the Wafq, and the dirt was transferred to Israeli archeologists for analysis. The Israeli authorities found scores of Jewish Temple relics in the nearly disposed dirt, including coins with Hebrew writing referencing the Temple, part of a Hasmonean lamp, several other Second Temple lamps, Temple period pottery with Jewish markings, a marble pillar shaft and other Temple period artifacts. The Waqf was widely accused of attempting to hide evidence of the existence of the Jewish Temples.

Temples 'never existed'

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed."

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples, tunnels that snake under the Temple Mount and over 100 ritual immersion pools believed to have been used by Jewish priests to cleanse themselves before services. The cleansing process is detailed in the Torah.

Asked about the Western Wall, Tamimi said the structure was a tying post for Muhammad's horse and that it is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the Wall predates the mosque by more than 1,000 years.

"The Western wall is the western wall of the Al Aqsa Mosque. It's where Prophet Muhammad tied his animal which took him from Mecca to Jerusalem to receive the revelations of Allah."

The Palestinian media also regularly state the Jewish Temples never existed.

'We are fed up with this crap nonsense'

In a series of WND exclusive interviews, Palestinian terror leaders denied the existence of the Jewish Temples.

"We are fed up with this crap nonsense of the Temple Mount," said Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of Fata's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank.

"We do not know where this story came from. There is no historical or archeological proof that your legendary Temples existed. We are sick of this story. But Allah warned us that Jews will look for an excuse in order to corrupt life on earth, so we are not surprised from the fact that you keep raising this issue."

Muhammad Abdul-El, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees terror organization, said the Jewish Temples "existed only in your dreams.

"Go look for your stupid Temple elsewhere. And I am not saying this for political reasons. I say that the enemy invented this story in order to justify its occupation of Jerusalem."

Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, accused all Jews of being pathological liars.

"Stop lying and believing your own lies. Even if there was such a thing (as a Jewish Temple) do you really believe that Solomon, who was a prophet, would have built a Temple in the place that Allah wanted for the Al Aqsa Mosque?"

Judaism's holiest site

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Muslims say it is their third holiest site.

The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt. The Al Aqsa Mosque now sits on the site.

The temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays.

The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark where Muslims came to believe Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" - believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia - to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

Hamas's plans for Temple Mount foiled

Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
Jul. 2, 2007

Hamas attempts to gain control of the Temple Mount and recruit new Israeli-Arab operatives in east Jerusalem have been foiled by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), a senior security official announced on Monday.

According to the Shin Bet, Hamas, over the past few years, has invested millions of shekels in Jerusalem charities and religious institutions, as well as in construction on the Temple Mount, in an effort to bolster its presence and standing in the capital.

The official said that Hamas recently paid to enlarge a library and several prayer halls in Solomon's Stables, as well as for the renovation of a public restroom facility on the disputed holy site.

"Their goal is to gain full control over the Temple Mount," a high-ranking Shin Bet official said Monday. Hamas, he said, has also tried to infiltrate its members into the Temple Mount as part of the maintenance and religious staff who care for the site and preach, give tours and teach Koran classes there.

Hamas, the official said, had taken advantage of financial troubles in the Jordanian Wakf, which is responsible for the holy site, to bolster its presence there. The wakf has been suffering from financial constraints since 2000, when the Temple Mount mosques were closed to paying visitors.

Officials said the Hamas takeover of the Temple Mount was a "strategic" move and was aimed at bolstering the group's standing in the Palestinian territories and throughout the Muslim world.

The Shin Bet also focused its operations in curbing the flow of money into Hamas. A senior Hamas official, Yakub Abu Assab, was arrested for allegedly running a courier service that transferred funds from the West Bank and abroad to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. Israeli efforts to stop Hamas also included the arrests of Hamas parliamentarians, including Khaled Abu Afa, former Hamas minister for Jerusalem affairs.

During a year-long operation, Shin Bet arrested 11 Hamas officials based in Jerusalem, 10 of whom hold Israeli identity cards. All 11 detainees were due to be indicted for membership in a terror group and for financing illegal terror activity.

The Jerusalem Hamas operations received their funding from the Union of Good - an umbrella charity organization based in Saudi Arabia that has been outlawed by Israel - which used money changers, bank accounts in the West Bank, and couriers to send the money to local charity organizations, which then transferred cash to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. In the last 18 months, Hamas's Jerusalem headquarters received more than NIS 1 million in this fashion.

The Hamas activities on the Temple Mount were coordinated with the Islamic Movement, headed by Sheikh Ra'ad Salah. The activities also included organizing events during Ramadan such as large-scale post-fast meals, the purpose of which was to recruit support for Hamas and give the organization a foothold on the Temple Mount.

In addition to Hamas's efforts to take over the Temple Mount, in recent years the movement increased its activity in east Jerusalem, where it had set up religious institutions and used what seemed to be innocent festivities to brainwash Muslims with Hamas ideology.

To implement its goals, Hamas had also set up a number of institutions of a semi-religious nature to front illegal activities. According to security officials, there are no longer active Hamas institutions in Jerusalem.

Dome of the Rock: Target of Muslim Extremists?
by Emanuel A. Winston

Collapsing the Dome and Al-Aksa may trigger a war.

Concern has been raised in Israel that Islamic terrorists such as Hamas or Al-Qaeda may target the Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock or Al-Aksa Mosque, both of which sit atop the site of the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The Islamic terrorists would then blame Israel to arouse Muslim anger, in order to trigger a war in the Middle East. The subsequent loss of Muslim lives is of little concern to them. On the contrary, they even think this is the best way to get their fellow Muslims into their paradise, by making them shuhada (plural of shahid, martyr for Islam). We have already seen Shiite and Sunni Muslims target each others' mosques for demolition, and that both use their so-called "shrines" for the storage of weapons, explosives and safe houses for their terrorists. They do, however, expect Americans and Israelis to respect the self-proclaimed sanctity of their mosques and shrines.

Suspicions were raised in light of the frenzied reaction to Israel repairing a crumbling, earthquake-damaged earthen ramp that leads up to the site of the Temple Mount. Muslim leaders tried to assert that the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque were endangered by these repair measures - a rather ridiculous claim. It was also thought that Muslim terrorists were planning to collapse the shaky ramp on top of Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall. They may have intended to use this excuse to permanently close the Mughrabi Gate (the only gate up to the Mount open to non-Muslims) to the Temple Mount so no infidels (non-Muslims) could enter.

In this light, it is clear why Muslim leaders always opposed any infrastructure improvements in the area. With an anarchist agenda, they want people to get hurt and are happy to help the process along if it benefits their religious war against the Jews, Christians and all other non-Muslim infidels whom they must kill. It is clear why Muslim leaders always opposed any infrastructure improvements in the area.

In fact, the Muslim Wakf (religious administrative authority) has been carrying out secret excavations under the Temple Mount, to invent and reinforce their own religious claims while disposing of all Jewish artifacts - some from the First and Second Temple periods.

Israeli engineers warned the Wakf that they were weakening the supporting walls of the Temple Mount, including those of the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque. A dangerous bulge was spotted on a major retaining wall of the Temple Mount. Yet, the Wakf has continued to undermine the foundations until today.

A moderately small earthquake in February 11, 2004, coupled with the effects of a major snowfall, damaged the Mughrabi Gate ramp leading up to the Temple Mount. Even a small earthquake could completely collapse the ancient stone walls. Many earthquakes have hit this region, which lies on a major fault along the Jordan River, called the Dead Sea Rift, running the length of Israel and creating a series of active faults throughout the country. The area underlying the entire region is a series of major and minor faults under constant pressure to slip or crack, producing major and minor tremblers. (If you wish to explore this further, then pull up the words "earthquake," "2004," "damage to Mughrabi ramp to Temple Mount" on Google.)

Even a small trembler could collapse the wall of Solomon's Temple Mount now that the Muslim Wakf has dug out the core of the Mount. It is merely an event waiting to happen. The other possibility is that Muslim Arab terrorists might be preparing to place high explosives on the remaining supports that hold up the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa Mosque.

Time will tell.

Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst and commentator with the Gamla and Freeman organizations.

Q&A on the Temple Mount with Dr. Eilat Mazar

THE JERUSALEM POST
Feb. 14, 2007

Renowned archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University and the Shalem Center answers readers' questions about the Mughrabi Gate dispute and the status of the Temple Mount in recent years. Of the hundreds of questions received, here are 20 which encompass the major issues at hand.

John, Hong Kong: The Muslims claim the Mughrabi dig is within their holy site. Israel says it's nowhere near. Is it at all possible to answer this question with 100% reliability?

Dr. Mazar: The Mughrabi ramp is near the Western Wall of the compound, and it doesn't risk it's stability in any way. Moreover, it is of no risk whatsoever to the Al-Aksa Mosque, which stands about 100 meters to the east. There is no basis to the Muslims' claims. We should pay attention to their claims, which they have repeated many times in the past whenever they sought to raise a provocation. The same claim has been made with regards to my excavation in the City of David - 200 meters south of the Al-Aksa Mosque - declaring that the purpose of the excavation is to dig a tunnel under the mosque. At this very spot, the height of the original Second Temple-period wall is about 25 meters high, while the Mughrabi Gate is only 3.5 meters above the Herodian construction. In any case, the ramp only leads towards that gate.

Zachary Lubwama, Kampala, Uganda: Do you think that the findings will resolve the long standing dispute as to who the owner of this place is? Do you see Muslims accepting it if the findings reveal that this was a site for the Holy Jewish temple before a mosque was put in its place? Do you see Israel wishing to rebuild a third temple in this place, and would this be possible?

Dr. Mazar: We have learned about the history of the Temple Mount compound from archaeological and historical sources. These facts do not influence the Waqf and the Israeli Islamic Movement (especially its northern wing), as they completely ignore the history and ancientness of the site. They declare that the site was built as a mosque "since the time of Adam and Eve" - unfortunately, there are no grounds for a scholarly discussion with them. Returning to academic and scientific research, excavations around the compound near the Mughrabi ramp will show that the original compound built at this place was the most impressive and ingenious construction of the Second Temple period.

Rudy Reichstadt, Paris: What can you say about the declarations of archaeologist Meir Ben-Dov, who said that one could be satisfied with "a simpler and less expensive solution"?

Dr. Mazar: The Mughrabi ramp was in dire need of significant restoration. It was in a terrible state for many years and no simple work can be done there. This archeologist has declared in the past that we should thank the Waqf and the Islamic Movement for their destructive activities on the mount. In his words, they were "cleaning the place."

Brian Anderson, Jerusalem: In a desire for accuracy of information often lacking in news coverage, I would like to ask what efforts have been and are being made amidst the Mughrabi Gate project to 1) have necessary dialogue with Islamic officials regarding the impact of these efforts on the Temple Mount, its current condition and structures, and 2) plans/efforts in place on the part of the Antiquities Department (or other government agencies) to safeguard existing structures to help alleviate the concerns being expressed by many in the Islamic world?

Dr. Mazar: In recent years, the Waqf and the Israeli Islamic Movement were very active at the site, conducting a large-scale destruction of antiquities and continuing to do so without any dialogue. As far as I know, they were told and actually know the terrible condition of the Mughrabi ramp and how it needs a restoration, which is currently taking place. They also know that the Israeli Antiquities Authority is conducting a large excavation in order to document the antiquities as the ramp is strengthened to prepare for a more stable structure above it. The Antiquities Authority is conducting a regular archeological excavation at the this site, and the methods of excavation are well known and up to date, just as in any other excavation at such an important site.

Joseph Abraham, London: Is it true the Muslims built their Dome over the wrong rock? I understand that the Holy of Holies was built on a different rock on the Temple Mount.

Dr. Mazar: It's not the wrong rock, because at present it is on the highest spot on Mount Moriah, which is probably the same spot where the temple stood. Muslims believe that Mohammad went to a place that is called "extreme," and they relate this extreme place to be the location of the Al-Aksa Mosque, which was never claimed to be the spot of the temple itself.

Geoff Neilson, Cape Town, South Africa: Is there any specific location where the altar for sacrifices must be? Do we know the precise point of that location today?

Dr. Mazar: The location of the altar near the temple itself can be located in the most probable way - where we all locate the temple itself - but to pinpoint exactly where it stood is disputed. It's unlikely that this dispute will be resolved as long as excavations are prohibited inside the Temple Mount compound.

Yosef Zahav, Miami: Why isn't the Temple Mount symmetrical? It seems there are no two walls that are parallel. Isn't that surprising for a monumental architectural structure?

Dr. Mazar: You are correct. It's not really a square and not even a rectangle, but we need to understand that the compound as it appears today is an enlargement of a previous compound from the First Temple period. King Herod enlarged it by overcoming deep valleys that surrounded the ancient compound, which is very impressive and almost ingenious, but did not make it symmetrical.

Ezequiel Doiny, Buenos Aires: In 1996, Binyamin Netanyahu allowed the Muslims to build a third mosque in Solomon's Stables. By doing this, did Israel give the Muslims the opportunity to destroy important archeological remains?

Dr. Mazar: This was a huge mistake which took place without any archeological supervision. We are certain that a vast amount of important data was lost, especially when the Muslims dug the huge 2,000-square-meter pit in front of the stables and dumped the "garbage" along with ancient antiquities. They loaded hundreds of trucks - and I am not exaggerating - so you can imagine the scale of the data that was lost from all periods (Muslim, Byzantine, Roman and Jewish).

David Flug, Hillcrest, New York: How likely is it that the truckloads of material carted away by the Waqf in a previous construction project contained archaeologically significant material?

Dr. Mazar: We need to remember that the Temple Mount compound is very ancient and all the periods starting from the First Temple period were part of it. Although we know some remains were destroyed, others were left inside - maybe for secondary use, but nonetheless, they are there and can be revealed one day when proper excavations are allowed. Destruction took place mainly in the eastern part of the compound, and we should see to it that no further destruction is allowed there. Regrettably, there is no proper supervision. The east part is destroyed forever. Regarding the construction and restoration of the previous path of the Mughrabis, the excavations - as they are currently being conducted on a large scale - should continue in order to stabilize the pathway and allow the public to approach the Temple Mount compound. This is the only gate through which tourists can visit the compound, and there is urgent need for it to be stable and convenient. Inside the Temple Mount compound, excavations have been forbidden for centuries. Muslims do not allow anyone to excavate. It was tentatively agreed to leave the site as-is as long as no one made any changes. However, this is not the case. The Waqf and the Israeli Islamic Movement are conducting significant changes in order to convert the entire site into a built-up mosque.

Mary Ellen Marks, Highland Lakes: Is it true that the Ark of the Covenant is buried under the mount?

Dr. Mazar: There is a very high probability that the most important ancient remains are inside the compound in the massive underground halls. This includes the Ark of the Covenant.

Saul Mishaan, Brooklyn, New York: I know that digging on the Temple Mount is a non-starter, but is there any research involving the use of aerial infrared photography or sonar to assist in determining the layout of the Second Temple compound?

Dr. Mazar: I know that research using these methods had been conducted from outside of the compound in order to trace hollow spaces. There were very interesting results, such as the finding that the ancient walls of the compound are very thick, and that behind them are many massive underground halls.

Thomas Crispin, Phoenix, Arizona: What is the most exciting thing you've discovered in your career so far?

Dr. Mazar: My most exciting find was a personal seal impression one centimeter in diameter from the First Temple period that had the name of a minister who was part of the government of Zedekaya. I found it last year during my excavation in the City of David. His name is mentioned in the book of Jeremiah - he was the one who asked King Zedekaya to kill the prophet Jeremiah because he was telling the people of Jerusalem to surrender to the Babylonians. This is astonishing because it is a direct connection between an archeological find and a biblical document. It reinforces our understanding and appreciation of the bible as an historical source of great authenticity.

Abe Sender, Cambridge, MA: What do we know about the two chambers the Waqf claims are underneath the mount?

Dr. Mazar: These are chambers that were documented already in the 19th century. One of them served as a water cistern, and the other was used as a pathway during the Second Temple period and then most probably as a synagogue in the 11th century CE before finally being turned into a mosque in a later period.

Lee Safran, San Jose, California: What do you know about the construction/destruction at Solomon's Stables? Why wasn't Israel able to create an international outcry about this? It seems a much more significant destruction than the work at the Mughrabi Gate. Why didn't Israel petition the UN world heritage site committee or some other similar body? Or raise the issue with Jordan? Is this construction continuing as we speak, or has it finished?

Dr. Mazar: Israel made a big mistake by keeping mum about the illegal activities of destruction and conversion carried out inside the stables and around them. The Israeli government doesn't really understand that by turning a blind eye to the illegal actions undertaken by the Waqf and the Islamic Movement, it does not achieve the true quiet it seeks, since it only increases the appetite of the Muslim side, which notices that its acts go without punishment. This is still going on.

Dave Abernathy, Columbia: The JP published an article last week stating that a cistern was found recently that proves that the Second Temple existed, and that it's located more southwesterly than previously thought. Does this mean that a third Temple could be built without disrupting the current mosques on the Temple Mount?

Dr. Mazar: Prof. Joseph Patrich only suggested that he could locate the very spot where the altar stood near the Temple as he relates it to one of the underground cisterns at the site. It does twist the location of the temple a bit, and it is an interesting suggestion. I don't know how much it holds for the time being. Even if this is the case, there are no facts that will convince the Muslim side to allow any construction at the compound, except their own. As we are witnessing with the Mughrabi path row, the facts themselves mean nothing to them.

Dan Morman, Miami Beach: Since 1967, after custodial arrangements of the Temple Mount were implemented, who has performed more digging and construction work in the area - Israel or Muslims?

Dr. Mazar: On the Temple Mount itself, Israel has not conducted any work, since the Muslim side does not allow it. Around the mount, Israel has conducted large-scale excavations and cleared space for tourists and visitors to reach the Western Wall. Other areas in the northern and northwestern parts have been left as before [1967]. On the other hand, the Muslim side has never stopped digging and building inside the compound for its own purposes.

Donna Diorio, Dallas: I have been reading a lot about the Mughrabi ramp repairs, but not much about the announced new construction of a 5th minaret on the Temple Mount. When the plan was first announced in 2004, you are quoted as saying that archeological supervision must be resumed at the site before any changes. If this is a good thing for Israel to observe at the Mughrabi ramp, why isn't this call also being voiced regarding the Jordanian minaret plans?

Dr. Mazar: I was surprised to see that the Jordanians adopted the radical view that claims the construction of the Mughrabi ramp is destroying the Al-Aksa Mosque, despite the fact that they know all too well that there is no truth to this. Building a new structure like the minaret, the fifth one, is completely out of place in light of the status-quo situation of the site, which should have been maintained unless open options were submitted to all sides. Unfortunately, the Israeli government refrains from demanding that the site be under supervision so that its preservation is safeguarded. I want to remind you that the Jordanians did not once raise their voices regarding the destruction carried out by the Muslim side. The main thing to remember is that the mount is an extremely important historical site that needs to be preserved for the millions of people worldwide who are interested in it. It is sad to see how cheaply the site is treated.

Margaret, Sydney, Australia: Why is the site important to the Christians?

Dr. Mazar: The Temple Mount is of extreme value to the Christians as well, as it was the very spot where the Temple stood, at which Jesus himself arrived and became infuriated when he saw that it was being desecrated by so many people. He said that this was the holy place that the people must respect, and then he overturned the tables in fury. I see many Christians near the Temple Mount, standing on the stairs leading into one of its gates and praying. I urge the Christian world to raise its voice in order to help us preserve this magnificent site, which is part of Christian heritage, as well. As a member of the Public Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities for the past seven years, I feel that we do not have enough support from the millions of people all over the world who we assume care about the site. We need more support! People should write/call/email/fax the prime minister and the media, demanding to open the site.

Andrew, Boston: What can be seen at the site at present?

Dr. Mazar: The public is now allowed to enter site for a few hours only, but is not allowed to enter the mosques or any of the underground structures in which magnificent remains from the original Second Temple are located. These structures were converted in recent years to new mosques, after never being used as mosques before, and are now closed to the non-Muslim public.

The truth about the Temple Mount controversy - by David Gelernter - http://www.weeklystandard.com

Israeli government authorities are building a ramp to allow non-Muslims to reach the enormous platform atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The old access ramp was condemned as unsafe and torn down several years ago. The interim ramp that replaced it was designed for short-term service only. (Muslims control the Temple Mount and therefore have their own private access routes.) The new ramp is controversial. Some ramp must be built or non-Muslims will have no way to reach the Mount; but leading Israeli archaeologists say that the ramp under construction is badly placed and ought to be someplace else.

This dispute among Israelis is important but in itself would never have attracted much attention. However, by the nature of their reactions, Arab leaders have brought worldwide notoriety to the story--and made it a blood-curdling study in the power of lying in this credulous, ignorant global-media age.

Outraged Arab politicians describe the new ramp as an attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- although the mosque is on the Temple platform and the ramp stands outside the platform on pylons, and won't have any effect on the mosque at all. But those are mere facts. Prominent Arab agitators disdain even to notice them. Some have called for violence against Israel because of this imaginary assault on the mosque. And we know what "violence against Israel" means to the Jew-hating anti-Zionists among Arab statesmen: restaurants, sidewalk cafes, bus stops, and Passover Seders drenched in blood and scattered with smashed body parts as dying children cry quietly.

The leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Raed Salah, announced in response to the ramp project that "the danger in Jerusalem has increased. It is high time for the intifada of the Islamic people." The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Ismail Haniyeh, called the construction project "continued Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem." An Egyptian MP, Mohamed el-Katatny, announced in parliament, "That cursed Israel is trying to destroy Al-Aqsa mosque. . . . Nothing will work with Israel except for a nuclear bomb that wipes it out of existence."

This hysterical Arab reaction must be understood in context. Why are Muslim religious authorities in charge of the Temple Mount anyway -- Judaism's holiest site, in the heart of Israel's capital city? And who built the Temple Mount in the first place, and what makes this site holy? When we answer these questions -- keeping in mind that the ramp story is likely to be reported nearly everywhere (outside the United States and Israel) from the Arab viewpoint -- the real question becomes not whether this ramp should be finished (probably not), but how to heal an insane planet. The ramp can be taken down; but how can the Arab world be cured of its blood-lust against the Jews of Israel?

Let's start with the situation on the ground. Prominent Israeli archaeologists object to the new ramp because several of its footings stand in an important archaeological garden outside the Mount. They agree that a new ramp is necessary, but insist that it be routed around the garden. Some Orthodox Jews are unhappy with the project on religious grounds.

The Israel Archaeology Association, which approved the project, responds that you can't please everyone, especially in Jerusalem, least of all near the Temple Mount. If the ramp is moved, other groups will object. Which is a weak-sounding response -- or perhaps no response at all, merely an excuse.

But Arab objections have nothing to do with the archaeological garden; Arab leaders are worried (they say) about the safety of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Yet the ramp poses "no risk whatsoever to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which stands about 100 meters to the east," says the eminent archaeologist Eilat Mazar of the Shalem Center and the Hebrew University. Mazar is one of the archaeologists who object to the ramp's current location and want it moved.

Is it possible that Arab leaders are more interested in attacking Israel than protecting religious and cultural monuments? How anxious are Arab statesmen to protect the treasures of the Temple Mount? Let's step back a few years and see.

The Temple Mount is ruled by the Islamic authority of Jerusalem, the Waqf. The Waqf is supposed to respect the status quo and ask Israeli approval before making changes. In 1996, the Israeli government approved a Muslim request to build a large new underground mosque on the Mount. Construction began, and a request to build an "emergency exit" for the new mosque followed, and was also approved.

Enormous excavations were carried out. Thousands of tons of soil and fill were scooped out and trucked away. Those trucks were filled with some of the most precious stuff in the world. The Temple Mount is potentially the most important, exciting place on earth for archaeological digs.

A huge platform is balanced atop the Mount, shored up by enormous earth-and-stone works. King Herod the Great of Judea built this platform in the first century B.C. as a base for an enlarged, rebuilt Temple. (The Temple was the focus of Jewish ritual and pilgrimage.) But Herod's magnificent Temple was burnt to the ground by Roman forces under Titus, later emperor of Rome, in 70 A.D. The Jews had rebelled against Roman overlordship -- Herod himself had been a Roman client; they fought hard and lost. Rome was the only superpower of the day. On Titus' arch of triumph in Rome you can still see carvings of the plunder that the Romans carted home from Jerusalem -- including the famous seven-branched Temple menorah, later destroyed accidentally by fire.

The Romans grabbed as much as they could, but left behind innumerable traces of the Temple and of life in the Second Jewish Commonwealth, in the age when Jesus preached and the Mishnah was composed. There must be other archaeological treasures up there too, fragments of Jewish, Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim life in the centuries following the Roman rampage. Infrared photographs and other survey techniques suggest the presence of vast underground halls beneath the platform's surface. Some ancient rabbinic sources assert that the Ark of the Covenant, lost since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C., was buried on the Temple Mount; it might conceivably be standing in one of those underground chambers.

But the Waqf has a nice, simple policy regarding archaeological digs on the Mount. Don't bother applying; none are allowed. The world's most important archaeological site is off-limits to archaeology.

Under the circumstances, those underground excavations for the new mosque and its "emergency exit" looked like a stroke of qualified good luck. (The exit turned out to be a 2,000-square-meter pit that entailed the removal of over 6,000 tons of earth.) All that indescribably precious soil was scooped out, trucked away.

And trashed. Hundreds of truckloads were unloaded in municipal garbage dumps. Some drops were made late at night. This was vandalism on a breathtaking scale, and the vandals knew it. (In fact removing the soil was a crime in itself; archaeologists need to inspect soil in situ to understand the context and to know which layers were on top, what came next, and so forth.) All in all this was a sickening crime against the human spirit, a rape of the Mount. But radical Arab leaders routinely deny that a Temple ever existed in this place. They would love to annihilate every trace of Jewish history as they would love to destroy the Jews themselves. For would-be murderers, destroying truth is the next best thing to destroying life.

The precious soil was left unprotected, and garbage accumulated on top. Archaeologists managed to sift through certain portions that remained accessible. Important finds turned up. But "we are certain," Mazar said recently, "that a vast amount of important data was lost."

The Israeli government let it happen; ignored the outcry of Israelis and of archaeologists all over the world and allowed construction and dumping to continue. "The world's patrimony is being carried off in dump trucks," wrote Hershel Shanks (editor of Biblical Archaeology Review) in the Washington Post in July 2000. "All who care about the archaeological remains on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem . . . should be incensed at Israel's failure to stop the Waqf . . . from illegally destroying precious remnants of history important to Muslims as well as to Jews and Christians." An open letter to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, signed by dozens of prominent Israelis of all political colors, demanded that Barak stop "a serious act of irreparable archaeological vandalism and destruction." But he didn't. Many believe that the Barak government refused to act lest the "peace process" be interrupted or Arab violence break out. According to this (all-too-likely) explanation, a pathetically self-deluded Israeli government, conscious of the long, venomous history of Arab and world reactions to Israel, was too anxious and weak to stop this ugly crime.

The Islamic Authority of Jerusalem is no one's idea of a competent protector of one the world's most precious sites. How did it come to be in charge of this spot in the first place?

When the United Nations voted in 1947 to create twin states in British Palestine, a Jewish and an Arab state side-by-side, the city of Jerusalem was to be internationalized and belong to neither. The Zionists accepted this plan but the Arabs rejected it -- and in May 1948, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and the Arab Legions of Transjordan attacked the new Jewish state. They failed to destroy it but did capture half of Jerusalem--the important half, the Old City, where the Temple Mount stands. For the next 20 years the Kingdom of Jordan refused to allow Jews into the Old City, refused them access to the Western Wall--and systematically destroyed the city's synagogues, presumably as proxies for the Jews who got away.

Egypt provoked another war with Israel in 1967 (the Six Day War) by demanding that U.N. troops be withdrawn from the Sinai buffer zone and blockading the Straits of Tiran. During the fighting, Israeli soldiers recaptured the Temple Mount. They discovered that Jordanians had torn up Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives and used them to pave roads and build latrines. And yet soon afterward Israel unilaterally awarded control of the Mount to the Waqf. It was the same sort of pathetic, heartrending gesture that speaks of desperate longing for friendship and no more war that Barak made 30 years later, when he allowed the Waqf to pillage and violate the Mount.

That generous Israeli gesture of the late 1960s was met by universal gratitude throughout the Arab world, especially among the Palestinians of Jerusalem.

Just kidding.

Virtually all such Israeli gestures meet with the same response: redoubled hatred. (In one of the first Israeli digs in Jerusalem after the Six Day War, archaeologists found a previously unknown Muslim palace. "The finds from the early Muslim period are thrilling," said a high ranking official in the Jordanian Antiquities Department at the time, named Rafiq Dajani, "and frankly I am surprised that Israeli scholars have made them public." A few days later he was fired.)

How did it all come to be in the first place? Perhaps it is worth pointing out the obvious: Muslims revere this site in consequence of the Temple that once stood here.

Nowadays some cosmopolitan thinkers speak of the Temple as if it were a folk story or fairy tale or an "alleged" building. But it was as real as the World Trade Center. No sane historian doubts its existence. It is attested in many contemporary sources, Jewish and otherwise.

One report asserts that Titus did not intend to burn the Temple, and said that "the loss would be for Rome. Its continued existence will be a glory of the Empire." But the fighting raged out of control, and the Temple caught fire by accident. In any case, writes Simon Goldhill, professor of Greek at Cambridge University, the Temple "was the largest and most awe-inspiring religious monument in the world." Speaking of the extraordinarily refined and sophisticated engineering that went into Herod's project, Goldhill refers to the Platform's southern retaining wall--which "gives some sense," he writes, "of the [enormous] size of the stones and the brilliance of the wall's construction. There is nothing like this anywhere else in the ancient world."

Israelis created (long ago) the platform on the Temple Mount and the Temple itself, and the religious community that gave it all meaning--a gift to mankind that is valuable beyond measure. Thousands of years later, Israel turned over the keys to the Waqf in a peace offering, an act of friendship. Roughly 30 years after that, they allowed their Arab brethren to pillage and destroy invaluable records of ancient history rather than disturb the "peace process" or the Palestinian Arabs. And so today, Arab leaders demand (in violent outrage) that the world protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- their precious, sacred cultural treasure -- by stopping an Israeli construction project that won't go anywhere near it.

They are showing the world a rare combination of laughable hypocrisy and terrifying evil.

'Renew animal sacrifices on Mount' says radical rabbi - http://www.ynetnews.com

Member of Sanhedrin says sacrifices 'were not possible when the people of Israel were in the Diaspora, but now they are.' Adds: Jerusalem Temple should be rebuilt, Israeli government standing in our way

Animal sacrifices should be renewed on the Temple Mount, a member of the radical Sanhedrin organization told Ynetnews.

In ancient Israel and Judea, the Sanhedrin served as the highest court in the land, and was made up of 71 top judges. Now, a group of fringe rabbis say they have reformed the group, although the organization has received no recognition from Israel's official religious authorities.

"In the Torah there are around 200 commandments dealing with animal sacrifices," said Rabbi Dov Stein, of the Sanhedrin organization. "The Torah of Israel demands animal sacrifices. When the people of Israel were in the Diaspora, it couldn't be done. But now, there is the supreme institution, the Sanhedrin, made up of experts, and it can be done. The new Sanhedrin, like the old, will educate the people of Israel on how to keep and safeguard the Torah."

'Democracy was not invented today'

Stein vowed that "we will try to carry out animal sacrifices on the Temple Mount this Passover, as commanded by the Torah."

Asked if his organization sought to rebuild the third Temple, Stein's answer was unequivocal. "We want to establish the Temple again. Unfortunately, standing in our way is a hostile regime, the Israeli government, and rabbis who for political interest don't want this to happen."

Stein even suggested that Muslims would agree to the project, saying: "The Omar Mosque (the Dome of the Rock), built by Khalif Omar, was actually intended to safeguard the site for the Jews. Islam hasn't always been so hostile. Despite its hatred and massacres against us, Islam sees in Judaism a source and a guide. I think the moment will come that Muslims understand the need to build the Tem