Thursday, May 20, 2004

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:
Eastern Temple wall in danger of immediate collapse (Jerusalem Post)
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

The eastern wall of Jerusalem's Temple Mount is in danger of immediate collapse, which could cause a 'domino effect' and bring down other sections of ancient compound, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Shuka Dorfman said Tuesday.

The rare public warning, made at a meeting of the Knesset's Interior Committee, came one month after a team of senior Egyptian and Jordanian engineers began to carry out tests to determine the stability of the eastern wall.

[...]

"Our ongoing demand for the renewal of full archaeological supervision of the site is needed now more than ever after it has been proven yet again that the direct result of the lack of such inspection on the Temple Mount is further antiquities damage as well as physical danger," said Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, a leading mount expert and a senior member of the non-partisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount.

At the Knesset meeting Tuesday, committee head Yuri Shtern (National Union) called on the prime minister to have an authorized Israeli team carry out the needed repair work at the mount's eastern wall, as opposed to the foreign team at work on the southern wall.

This sounds like a good idea to me.

UPDATE: Ha'aretz also has an article on this. Excerpt:
Dorfman said no building materials are being brought to the mount now. Shlomo Ra'anan, who heads the police force on the spot, said as soon as police see any attempt to build there, the work is stopped and the authorities are informed.

Representatives of the committee for prevention of destruction of antiquities told the MKs that "wide-scale building is continuing [at the site] without appropriate archaeological supervision."

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