UN on Mugrabi Gate dig

From Haaretz.

Israel's excavation work at the Mugrabi Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem is being carried out in accordance with international standards, according to the report drafted by a team of UNESCO experts who came to Jerusalem to expect the controversial dig.

Sources in the UN said the report, which will be published on Wednesday, accepts Israel's claims that the excavations do not harm the Temple Mount compound, and support the legality of the work.

However, the report criticizes Israel's choice to carry out the excavation independently, without including international bodies in the plans, and calls on Israel to temporarily halt the excavation immediately to allow continued international supervision.

I'll be interested to hear why Israel should include international bodies - as a diplomatic fig-leaf? Do they think that in this way they will placate such people as Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, who has been calling up an "intifada" (another one) over the footbridge?

Jews on the Dome of the Rock

Yehuda Litani tells a story about the Temple Mount in 1899 and 1992 and about what happens to awkward archeological evidence in the hands of the Waqf.

In the years 1992-3 the late King Hussein of Jordan financed the renovations of the golden dome, which was carried out by a construction company from Northern Ireland. On a visit to the site during those renovations I discovered a story that wasn’t known until then, regarding the Jewish-Ottoman-Palestinian connection to the mosques on Temple Mount.

The Dome of the Rock was surrounded with scaffolding, and before ascending one of them a friend of mine drew my attention to an iron panel that lay on the floor and was inscribed in French. The foreman of the Irish construction company said the panel had been found between the two halves of the crescents at on top of the mosque, and was temporarily dismantled so that the dome could be coated in gold.

The words in French revealed that the Mosque had been renovated in 1899 during Turkish rule, and that the works had been assisted by the Jewish community in Jerusalem led by a public figure called Avraham (Albert) Entebbe, who among his numerous other activities was also the principal of the city's "Kol Israel Haverim" school...

[T]he inscription noted that for the purpose of renovating the mosques on the Temple Mount five acclaimed Jewish artists had been invited to Jerusalem...The inscription also noted that all the students at Entebbe's school were given a three-month leave in order to assist their Muslim brothers in the renovations works on Temple Mount.

I told the Irish foreman about my discovery, and asked him to look after the iron panel so that I could take a photograph of it. The foreman apparently told Waqf representatives about the panel, and when we came back to the site the next day the panel was no longer there. The foreman said the Waqf had taken it away. When I asked one of them a few days later where the iron panel was, he said that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

This is now. That was then.

This article recounts what happened in 1996 to what is probably the most valuable archeological site in the world for many years now out of bounds to archeologists.

[T]he Waqf [the Islamic authority of Jerusalem, to which Israel gave authority over Temple Mount after the '67 war] 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.

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... 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.

Drenched in blood, despair, wipe out, atrocities

No-one's died yet, so for that small mercy, we should be grateful. But how long will it be? Judge for yourself from the tone of moderation exhibited below.

Kashmir

Kashmir on Friday shut in protest against Israel's excavation and repair work around Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The strike was called by radical Islamic terrorist group Jamiatul Mujahideen.

All shops and business centres remained closed. Transport also remained off the roads, thinning people's movement. The impact of the strike looked complete as the government offices were closed due to holiday on the eve of Hindu festival Maha Shivratri.

Jerusalem

The head of the northern branch of Israel's Islamic Movement on Friday called for an intifada (uprising) to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Israel Radio reported. In a fiery speech at his protest tent in the East Jerusalem, Sheikh Raed Salah accused Israel of attempting to build the Temple on al Aqsa while drenched in Arab blood, according to the report.

"Israeli history is drenched in blood," Israel Radio quoted Salah as saying. "They want to build their Temple while our blood is on their clothing, on their doorposts, in their food and in their water."

Pakistan

Mr Amil said that the region had been “thrown into despair” by the Israeli actions in and around the Haram al Sharif compound.

Morocco

"Now the Zionists want to wipe out this chapter in history and judaise the gate," he told Al-Attajdid newspaper in an interview. "This is the battle of all people from the Arab Maghreb," he said.

Iran at the UN

An Iranian official here Tuesday strongly condemned Zionist atrocities in occupied Palestinian lands, particularly the recent acts of profanity on the al-Aqsa Mosque in Al-Qods' old city.
The Zionist regime not only continues to flout 16 UN Security Council resolutions denouncing its expansionist policies but also continues its savage crimes on Palestinians, the Iranian envoy reiterated.

Russia

Russia demanded the Israeli occupation Wednesday to stop digging around al-Aqsa mosque and end the siege imposed on the Palestinian territories.

Healthly Temple Mount discussions

As an illustration of how to create an imbroglio from which nothing sensible can be extracted, some of today's articles about the construction of the footbridge to Temple Mount.

From The Palestine Chronicle

This represents the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict as Jews claim that their alleged Haykal (Temple of Solomon) exists underneath Al-Haram Al-Sharif.

In an attempt to confront Israeli schemes threatening the mosque, the Waqfs Ministry released some one million copies of an electronic guide about the mosque and its compound.

Hassan Al-Haifi in the Yemen Times

It is hard to believe that the West is still hypnotized to the goody-goody image of the Zionist thieves that took Jerusalem and most of Palestine from its rightful owners and are adamant on finishing up the job of ethnic cleansing and eating up the remains of the Palestinian homeland. What proof does one need to underscore the fact that the Zionist menace will ensure that the world faces another calamitous war just so a few eccentric Jewish fanatics show contempt for all things non-Jewish within their surroundings, including an important religious shrine like the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which for 1500 years was left without any claim to it by any Jewish faction as "the Temple of Solomon"?

Will the Zionist thugs in Tel Aviv and their supporters in the International Zionist Establishment have it their way for the next century or even decade until they find the right opportune moment and demand to take Medina, on the false pretext of once belonging to the Hebrew Tribes of Khaybar and Quraitha?

Meanwhile, Meron Benvenisti in Haaretz sees the situation as a little more complicated. He has harsh words for Sheikh Raad Salah, who claims that the new bridge is part of plans to "create a stranglehold around Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order for the Israeli establishment to fulfill its darkest dreams of building a Jewish Temple [in its place]."

But he also has a bone to pick with the Western Wall rabbi and the mayor of Jerusalem, who is Orthodox, both of whom he says "have no interest in preserving free access for Jews and tourists to the Temple Mount." This because of the Torah prohibition to go to Temple Mount from the Western Wall plaza. They designed the bridge to be as long as it is so as to cut off access from the plaza.

If you want to have a look yourself, there's now a webcam on the site.