Olmert spurns bid to reconsider Jerusalem dig
Pastor Dale Morgan
Olmert spurns bid to reconsider Jerusalem dig*
By Jeffrey Heller
Reuters
Thursday, February 8, 2007; 9:52 AM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spurned a
call by his defense minister to consider halting excavations near
Jerusalem's most sacred Islamic shrine that have angered Muslims, an
official said on Thursday.
The dig, outside a compound housing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa
mosque, has exposed the depth of Arab suspicions over Israeli activities
in Arab East Jerusalem and the simmering tensions between Olmert and
Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Arab states have asked Israel to halt the work at Islam's third holiest
shrine, charging it could damage the mosque's foundations. Palestinian
militants have threatened to end a three-month old Gaza truce with Israel.
Israel said the holy places would not be harmed by what it called an
attempt, mandated by law, to salvage artifacts before construction of a
pedestrian bridge leading to the complex known to Muslims as al-Haram
al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount.
An Israeli official, confirming a report in the Haaretz newspaper, said
Peretz, leader of Olmert's main coalition partner, the centre-left Labor
Party, had sent a written appeal to the prime minister asking for the
project to be reassessed.
"Our problem with the work at the Temple Mount ... is its effect on our
relations with important, moderate elements in the Arab world who are
very angered by it," Labor's Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told
Israel Radio.
Israeli officials called the project essential as an existing ramp
leading up to the complex was considered unsafe after it was damaged by
a snowstorm and an earthquake in 2004.
Olmert's office said the excavations, some 50 meters (yards) from the
base of the compound, would go on.
"A thorough examination of the matter would reveal that nothing about
the work underway will harm anyone, and there is no truth in the
contentions against the work," it said, in a snub to Peretz.
Israeli media have been rife with reports that Olmert wants to replace
the former trade union chief, who has little military experience, and
appoint former Prime Minister Ehud Barak as defense minister.
Peretz and Barak, Israel's most decorated soldier, will do battle in a
Labor Party leadership vote in May.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, on Thursday condemned the Israeli
excavations as a provocation and appealed for international intervention
to stop them. "The kingdom expresses its condemnation of these
aggressive Israeli actions," state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an
official as saying.
GAZA ROCKETS
Citing the Jerusalem excavations, the militant group Islamic Jihad,
which had not signed on to the November ceasefire, said it fired rockets
from Gaza at Israel. The attack caused no serious damage.
In a series of skirmishes with Palestinians, police have arrested some
30 people in Jerusalem since the work began on Tuesday and many are
still detained, a police spokesman said.
"There is no doubt that tomorrow will be the test," Jerusalem police
chief Ilan Franco told Army Radio, referring to Muslim prayers on Friday.
Israeli police, out in force, blocked the Mufti, the most senior Islamic
cleric in Jerusalem, and officials of the Islamic religious trust from
approaching the compound.
The shrine has been a flashpoint of violence in the past. A Palestinian
uprising began in 2000 after then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon toured
the hilltop area.
Israel's opening of an entrance to an archaeological tunnel near
al-Haram al-Sharif in 1996 triggered Palestinian protests and led to
clashes in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers died.
The compound, where two biblical temples once stood and Muslims believe
Mohammad ascended to heaven, is in Arab East Jerusalem, which Israel
captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a step that has not
won international recognition.
Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a
future state.