TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Two pieces have been posted online about the illicit WAQF excavations on the Temple Mount. The first, "The Destruction of the Temple Mount Antiquities," by Mark Ami-El, is a reprint of an August, 2002, article, now republished by an organization called the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Unfortunately, readers who don't pay attention to the date will get some out-of-date information which should have been corrected. The second, "The Abomination on the Temple Mount Continues," is out on the Temple Mount Faithful website. The latter has a number of dubious statements and errors in the first paragraph:

The Temple Mount, the Hill of G-d, is still under terrible Islamic and Arab abomination. From the first moment that the Arabs occupied the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and Israel in 638 CE they began to destroy the last remains of the Second Temple which still existed on the Temple Mount especially the Western Wall of the Temple which was still standing and was the Western Wall of the Holy of Holies. They also destroyed the altar and other important parts of the Temple complex. They robbed vessels that they found in between the ruins of the Temple. At the end of the 7th Century they built the Dome of the Rock on the most holy place of the Jewish nation and the location of the First and Second Temples. They also built a mosque on the Holy Hill of the G-d of Israel and named it Al Aqsa. They did this evil without asking permission from G-d Who stated again and again in all the Scriptures that on this Holy Hill only the Temple could stand that the Jewish people would build for His name. They also did not ask the permission of the Jewish people, they just did it as a part of their imperialistic occupation of half of the world which started at this time. They did not do it only in Jerusalem but all over the wold in every place they occupied by their imperialistic forces. They destroyed churches and built mosques in their place. They did not even hesitate to destroy the Ayah Sofia church in Constantinople and built a big mosque instead of it. This church was the center of Eastern Christianity. Then they renamed Constantinople as Istanbul. ...

I have never heard that there were an altar or hidden vessels on the site by the time of the Muslim conquest and this seems wildly unlikey. Nor have I heard that the walls around the complex were damaged, and this too seems unlikely, given that mosques were being built there. The Hagia Sophia Church was transformed into a mosque during its history, but it was not destroyed and it is now a church again. And the name Istanbul is a corruption of a Greek phrase (eis ten polin) which means "into the city." The change of name has no Islamic ideological element.

Regular reader will be well aware of my concern about the unauthorized and destructive digging on the Temple Mount. But it should be opposed with accurate and up-to-date information.

UPDATE (14 August): Diana Muir e-mails:

Small error. Hagia Sophia was indeed turned into a mosque at the conquest in 1456, an, yes, Ataturk did turn it into a museum, a purposeful act of laicite. However, it is still a museum. At a guess, you probably read something about the careful restoration of the byzantine mosaics and frescoes a couple of years ago, and your memory misled you into thinking that the restoration was a restoration of the building to the original function.

I don't think my mistake was quite that up to date, but thanks for the correction.