LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Temple Mount: Moslem Waqf
built 643 days ago
The Temple Mount movements plan to petition the Supreme Court against the illegal Moslem Waqf construction works on the Mount. They have already demanded that the Attorney-General order the works frozen, and forbid further construction materials and heavy equipment from being brought to the site. Legal and other experts are of the assumption that the State Prosecution will have trouble justifying its traditional stance against government intervention, because the present situation is strong evidence that the State is unsuccessful in supervising the Waqf's activities.
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During February 2007 the Israel Antiquities Authority started work on the construction of a new pedestrian pathway to the Temple Mount. The existing wooden structure was built as a temporary measure after a landslide in 2005 made the earthen ramp leading to the Mugrabi Gate unsafe and in danger of collapse. The works sparked condemnation from Arab leaders with a Syrian Foreign Ministry official stating that "Syria strongly condemns these violations, and considers them a blatant affront to Muslim waqfs and the feelings of Muslims worldwide." Similar views were made by Jordan's King Abdullah. However Jerusalem District Police Chief Ilan Franko said that the works were coordinated in advance with the Muslim Waqf that oversees the Temple Mount. A recent UNESCO ruling on the incident cleared Israel of wrongdoing, saying that they had acted with professionalism, but nonetheless advised the continued cessation of construction until more concerned parties could be consulted, so that negative sentiments would not be inflamed.
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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 ... by the Israeli police who advises against a visit to the Temple Mount to non-Muslims.
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Currently, the Temple Mount is governed by the Waqf, the Supreme Muslim Religious Council. The site has been under Muslim control since the Muslim reconquest of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century. This state of affairs was not changed after the area containing the Temple Mount came under Jewish control after the Six-Day War, and Muslims retain almost complete autonomy over the site.
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In 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City, which contains the Temple Mount. Although the Mount is technically under Israeli supervision, the Temple Mount has since the war been in the de facto control of the Muslim Waqf (religious endowment). The long-established policy, known as the “status quo,” is to leave Muslim and Christian holy sites in the hands of their respective religions.1 Therefore, the above ground area of the Temple Mount is reserved for Muslims and their religious observances. Although Jews and members of other religions have been allowed on the Mount since 2003 (there was a three-year exclusion after the Second Intifada started), none are allowed to pray there. Muslim authorities and the Israeli police keep the 40-year-old anti-prayer rule strictly enforced. Jews are only allowed to pray at the plaza outside the Western (or Wailing) Wall, part of the retaining wall built by Herod in the first century B.C.
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While the Israel Antiquities Authority has expressed concern over damage to Muslim-period structures within the Temple Mount, other archaeologists have charged that archaeological material dating to the First Temple Period (ca. 960-586 B.C.) was being destroyed. A group of archaeology students examined Temple Mount fill dumped by the Waqf in the nearby Kidron Valley and recovered ceramic material an d architectural fragments dating to this period and later. According to Seligman and former Jerusalem District archaeologist Gideon Avni, while the material recovered from the Kidron Valley contained pottery sherds dating from the First Temple to the Crusader (twelfth-thirteenth centuries) periods, it was originally unstratified fill and lacked any serious archaeological value. "It's the normal chronological sequence you encounter all over Israel," says Avni.
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