Silence in the Face of Continued Temple Mount Destruction
Pastor Dale Morgan
Silence in the Face of Continued Temple Mount Destruction*
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) As an Arab bulldozer continues to dig away at the current
Temple Mount floor, evidence is mounting that actual walls from the
Second Temple are being destroyed. The world is silent, while Prime
Minister Olmert continues talks with the Palestinian Authority regarding
future sovereignty over the holy area.
The actual digging, under the auspices of the Moslem Waqf [religious
trust to which Israel has assigned responsibility for the Temple Mount -
ed.], has been ongoing for several weeks. Only over the past 8-10 days,
however, has attention been paid to the dangers of the barely supervised
works. The Waqf claims that the purpose of the 400-meter-long,
1.5-meter deep trench is to replace electric cables in the area.
Discarding a Temple Wall, Piece by Piece
For the Jews, however, the trench represents more than just better
lighting. Under the current floor of the Temple Mount compound lie the
remains of the Second Holy Temple, largely untouched since it was
destroyed by the Romans nearly 1,950 years ago. For pieces of one of
the Temple courtyard office walls to be unceremoniously bulldozed up and
discarded - as archaeologists such as Drs. Eilat Mazar and Gavriel
Barkai believe has happened - is all but traumatic for Jews who have
been praying for centuries to see the Temple rebuilt.
A week ago, Temple expert Dr. Gavriel Barkai told Arutz-7 that according
to his, and others', calculations, the route of the trench passes
precisely through the spot where one or more of the office walls stood
the day of the Roman destruction.
"Some man-worked stones have been found in the trench," Barkai said at a
press conference last week, "as well as remnants of a wall that,
according to all our estimations, are from a structure in one of the
outer courtyards in the Holy Temple."
Shortly afterwards, Dr. Mazar examined a photo of the trench, clearly
showing a chopped-up carved stone. Mazar said the damaged stone
displays elements of the Second Temple era, and might well be part of
the Jewish Temple. She says she needs to view it up close; but the Waqf
does not allow her to do so.
Waqf Stops TV Crew
In fact, the Waqf is so protective of the dig and its finds that it has
tried to stop all photographing of the area. Rabbi Chaim Richman of the
Temple Institute reported that his camera was confiscated before he was
allowed to visit the site this week, and a TV camera crew were prevented
from taking pictures of the dig on Thursday.
Waqf guards backed up by the Israeli police stopped TV crews from
approaching open sections of the trench, and said they could only film
closed areas. Sections of the massive trench were being closed up with
dirt before archeologists were able to inspect the site.
Olmert's Role
Israel's Antiquities Authority, apparently by order of Prime Minister
Olmert, has not demanded an end to the construction work, and has
stationed only one employee there to "supervise." The construction is
underway while reports abound of a deal between Olmert and PA leader
Abbas regarding a future handover of eastern Jerusalem, including the
Temple Mount, to the PA.
It appears that only archaeologists and Temple activists in Jerusalem
are incensed. "If Israel was building a shopping mall," said Rabbi
Richman, "and they found what might be an ancient Buddhist structure,
the government would stop the construction and have archaeologists go
over the area with a fine tooth comb."
"But here," he continued, saying, "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 charged the Waqf with "trying to erase Jewish vestiges from the
Temple Mount," in keeping with the claim by many Moslems that the Temple
never actually existed.
"This is an extraordinarily serious offense," Richman told Arutz-7. "A
corrupt, spiritually bankrupt government is allowing Judaism's holiest
site to be trashed... Jews in Israel and abroad are asleep, and have
not awakened to the importance of the Temple in Judaism or the
desecration of this holy site being performed daily by the Waqf."
Islamic Connection to Jerusalem - Weak
Former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Moshe Sasson, an expert on Islamic
affairs, summed up for Arutz-7 the exact nature of Islam's connection to
Jerusalem: "The Caliph Abd El-Malik, when he moved his center of power
from Damascus to Jerusalem, sought to build up the importance of
Jerusalem as an Islamic center, and built the mosques there. The Al
Aksa mosque was built 621 years after Mohammed's death. Jerusalem is not
mentioned even once in the Koran (it is mentioned 667 times in the
Bible), and the Al Aksa mosque is mentioned only once - and even that is
not a reference to the mosque of today. In verse 1 of chapter 17, the
Koran states that Allah transported Mohammed from Mecca to Al-Aksa; but
this cannot be referring to the mosque in Jerusalem, because when
Mohammed was alive, there were no mosques there. Rather, it refers to
the 'end' (aktsa, in Arabic) of the sky."