Monday, February 10, 2014

April 2001: Conflict Between Jews and Muslims Over the Temple in Jerusalem


During the last weeks there are renewed construction activities on the Temple Mount. In Israel there is a feeling that control over the Mount is lost. There are rumors about the digging of a water sewer, a mysterious white building and a fourth mosque.
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Jon Seligman, district archaeologist of Jerusalem with the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), sits grimly in his office one mile away from Jerusalem's Old City and the location of the Temple Mount. In his rather worn-out-looking study that is full of folders, dusty books and rolled architectural papers on a chaos of triplex tables, Seligman relates that he cannot execute his function anymore since the Intifada broke out in autumn last year.
Dressed in a cozy woolen sweater Seligman looks like a once enthusiastic teacher who has found out that his students are not interested in his subject. His voice sounds disappointed and a bit weary when he concludes that his work has been taken from him in a theoretical and practical sense.
Already since 1996, says Seligman, while he sits down at a desk and his hands fold a origami cap from a colored sheet, his task has been very difficult. Starting from that year archaeologists - any archaeologist, whether he is from the IAA or not - are not allowed to inspect the Temple Mount.
The Waqf, the religious Muslim endowment that rules the Temple Mount, decided to banish archaeological supervision after the 'Tunnel Riots' in September 1996, during the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. These riots were about the opening of a tunnel along the Temple Complex' Western Wall, to Muslim Quarter. During the fierce fight around 70 Palestinians were killed and 17 Israeli soldiers.
Since 1996 the function of the Temple Mount archaeologist, Seligman's job, is restricted to looking round and reporting his observations to the relevant authorities.
And that is exactly what Seligman did, from the moment he stepped in his function, 14 months ago. But then came the Intifada.
Since the Intifada II broke out last fall, admittance to the Temple Mount has been denied to him altogether. In the first place by the Waqf. After that also by the Israeli police who advises against a visit to the Temple Mount to non-Muslims.  
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 Digging on the Temple Mount is forbidden. Israel introduced the prohibition to spare 'Muslim sensitivities' after the infamous Tunnnel Riots of 1996, in other words at the same time that the Waqf decided to close off the Mount for supervision by Israeli archaeologists.
In the years before that, after 1967 and Israel's annexation of the Old City, there were regular excavations by Israeli archaeologists in and around the Temple Mount. The aims were without exception scientific. For instance one looked for remains of the time of King Herod, and older periods, for example that of the Hasmonean kings (second and first century BCE).
At the Temple Mount's south wall digging took place to uncover the Arabic Ummayad palaces and Crusader remains. This last area borders on the El Aqsa mosque. The Muslim administration also added some activities of their own, especially around the El Aqsa. Arguments about the excavations occured, the Muslims complained about the danger of collapse and cracks in the walls. The disputes were in general solved peacefully.
But Seligman's outlook on the current situation on the Temple Mount is more bleak. Though he has not completely lost the contact with his Muslim colleagues, they do not discuss the Temple Mount anymore. His latest visit to the Temple Mount was in September 2000, just before the Intifada.
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Israel is in a difficult predicament concerning the Temple Mount. After it had conquered Jerusalem's Old City in 1967 and became sovereign over the Temple Mount, it decided not to change the 'Status Quo'. This consists of status about Israel's Holy Places dating from the Ottoman era. Later regimes have respected it, the English Mandate as well as Jordan, that ruled East-Jerusalem and the Old City until 1967.
The Status Quo says that Jews are not allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, but admittance is free for everyone. Further it decides that the Waqf administrates the Temple Mount and its mosque.
Israel added some rules of its own. Israeli police, in practice often Islamic policemen, together with the Waqf, is responsible for the site's security. Archaelogists of the IAA hold surveillance over the antiquities on the Temple Mount.
In addition, the general laws of Israel and the Municipality of Jerusalem are applicable, among which the Planning and Building Law and criminal law, which respectively consider building without permission and vandalism as punishable. 
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Again we try to call the Waqf fa commentary, and other Muslim experts at the Palestinian universities. It is not easy to find someone, several people decline cooperation. The Waqf does not answer the telephone.
On the Internet we find a letter by Adnan Husseini, head of the Waqf, froJuly 2000. The statement is still very interesting. It is a reaction to the American archaeology professor Hershel Shanks, who had written that the Waqf is damaging antiquities on the Temple Mount..
Husseini writes that the Waqf does not violate antiquities. Their activity is the removing of "dirt", that has been examined by Palestinian archaeologists of the University of Al-Quds and the chairman of the Department of Antiquities at the Waqf. "They have examined samples of the excavated dirt and found no structures, artifacts or archaeological remains from any era."
The allegations about destruction finds Husseini "ludicrous." Israel is guilty of the destruction to antiquities. Since the annexation of the Old City in 1967, Israeli authorities have taken numerous unilateral actions that disregard Muslim sensibilities. He mentions the destruction of the Maghrebi quarter from the 12th century that bordered on the Western Wall and made place for the 'Western Wall Plaza", and the use of bulldozers to excavate the Ummayad palaces.
Husseini does not deny that there are rather far-reaching construction activities on the Temple Mount. The reason is that there is little space on the Mount with a view to the thousands of pilgrims that will be able to visit the Temple Mount after the peace has been signed between Israel and the Palestinians.
This sounds a bit far away now, but Husseini wrote this at the pinnacle of the expectations towards a final peace accord, a few months before the Intifada.
Husseini ends his letter with a political admonition. He shoves the allegations about the destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount from the table: "[the] unfounded accusations, combined with Israel's track record of heavy-handed unilateralist [sic] in Jerusalem, demonstrates all too clearly why Palestinian negotiators have insisted that Israeli end its occupation of this sacred city."
 http://www.jewishmag.com/42mag/templemount/templemount.htm