Sunday, June 17, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
From the Temple Mount Sifting Project:
A very serious incident occurred in the last few days on the Temple Mount. In the eastern part of the Temple Mount there are mounds of earth from various illegal excavations carried out by the Waqf on the Temple Mount in the early 2000s. An attempt to remove the mounds from the Temple Mount was made in 2004, in coordination with the police and IAA, was forestalled by a petition to the High Court of Justice filed by Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. The court ruled that the earth can only be removed under archaeological supervision and with coordination with the Committee.
It should also be noted that according to an internal report written by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2016, the excavation permit, given to us to which we sift the earth that was removed from the Temple Mount at the end of 1999 and at the beginning of 2004, also applies to these mounds.
For years, the Israel Police has had some success in preventing work in these piles of dirt. In 2013 there was an attempt to evacuate them by truck and tractor on the false grounds that only park waste was removed, but thanks to the media, we were able to stop the works.
Now, under the auspices of the last days of the month of Ramadan, when the Temple Mount is closed to none-Muslim visitors and the police presence is limited, over than a thousand people carried out excavation work, stone clearance and the creation of terraces in these piles of earth!
This is a clear violation of the High Court’s order and shows – this constitutes decade’s worth of regression in the level of enforcement of the antiquities law on the Temple Mount.
The changes in the earth mounds will greatly disrupt the ability to separate the sources of the debris during their eventual evacuation. During the course of such a manual excavation, many archeological artifacts are routinely discovered, but it is highly doubtful that any such items will reach the hands of archaeologists.
This is a huge archaeological crime. But don't expect, say, UNESCO to say a word. Because their job isn't to protect ancient relics but to protect Arabs destroying ancient relics.
(h/t Yoel)
