HVK Archives: The seeds of calamity
The seeds of calamity - The Pioneer
Nadav Shragai
()
8 October 1996
Title : The seeds of calamity
Author : Nadav Shragai
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : October 8, 1996
For many long years, the work Israel carried out in the
Western Wall Tunnel and the Hasmonean Tunnel was one of
the openest secrets in the world; almost every foreign
visitor from the rank of ambassador and up was taken to
the spot.
Some of those visitors would certainly be blushing today
with shame, if the Foreign Ministry personnel were to
reveal some of the words of praise and esteem showered by
those very people - including not a few Arabs - and even
the heads of the Waqf (the Islamic religious authority)
and the Supreme Muslim Council, concerning the thousands
of finds and archeological artifacts which Israel has
retrieved from the depths of the earth.
However, the Waqf and the Islamic religious establishment
will always oppose archeological excavations in the area,
for much deeper reasons than the allegation about upset-
ting the foundations of the mosques as a result of the
digging. The protests about changing the Muslim character
of Jerusalem are derived from the basic concepts of Islam
regarding the State of Israel.
The late Orientalist David Farhi, with whom Moshe Dayan
concurred in laying down the arrangements prevailing till
now on the Temple Mount, once said that, for generations,
the Jews were tolerated in the Muslim world only as an
enslaved people without the rights of a political status.
And the Orientalist Professor Moshe Sharon determined
that in the eyes of Islam the establishment of Israel had
violated all the rules concerning Islamic territory,
Islamic holy sites, and the juridical status of the Jews,
according to Islam. Israel was established on territory
belonging to the "Dar al-Islam" in which there are Isla-
mic holy sites. The Jews are not subordinate as it was
decreed they should be and, gravest of all, they rule
over Muslims. They are the sovereign in Jerusalem.
The elements have been incorporated in hundreds of ser-
mons which religious clerics have delivered on the Temple
Mount for the past 30 years, and in dozens of "fatwas"
(religious rulings) published by Islamic clerics since
the establishment of Israel, and more so since Jerusalem
was reunified.
This religious outlook was reinforced by the close combi-
nation between religion and state prevailing in Islam,
too; the saying "religion and the state are twins",
attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, was given fuller
expression in Jerusalem after 1967 over the issue of the
Temple Mount.
Arab statesmen and Islamic religious leaders have turned
the religion into an instrument to meddle in politics,
and politics into an implement to meddle in religion.
That is more or less what is also happening now, before
out very eyes. Since the events of 1929 (the widespread
Arab rioting), the mosques on the Temple Mount ceased to
serve as a place of worship and a purely religious sym-
bol, and became one of the main national symbols of the
struggle against Zionism.
Behind the scenes, it may perhaps be possible to reach
understandings with the Waqf, but it us difficult to do
this when the issue is the Temple Mount. In 1988, Israel
tried for the first time to open an exit from the Hasmo-
nean Tunnel on to Oneima Street, adjacent to the Temple
Mount. What occurred then in the city and in the West
Bank greatly resembles what has happened now, even though
Waqf officials were invited to visit the tunnels before
the opening was cut, toured them, and even examined the
maps of the Israeli engineers. the attempt to coordinate
the opening operation with Waqf officials failed this
time, too, even though the Waqf had been offered the
compensation of permission to open as additional gate to
Solomon's Stables and the possibility of holding religi-
ous services in them. The Waqf will always raise diffi-
culties over excavations in the area of the Temple Mount;
if the question depended on it, the Southern Wall and the
Western Wall along it entire length would never have been
uncovered - and the Muslim heritage of Jerusalem, dis-
closed in these digs, would still be buried in the depths
of the earth.
The allegations about upsetting the foundations of the
mosques are utter nonsense: the Hasmonean aqueduct was
hewn out of the rock thousands of years ago, and only now
has been re-exposed. The work of removing sewage water
and mud this tunnel could not upset the foundation of
anything, especially as the route of the tunnel does not
pass under the Temple Mount perimeter, but west of it.
In contrast to similar events in the Temple Mount vicini-
ty in the past, the wave of rioting this time was organ-
ised by the people of the Palestinian Authority. A senior
police officer said this week "it was easier to do busi-
ness with Jordan in the Temple Mount zone."
On Tuesday, Yasser Arafat declared in Gaza: "Out blood is
cheap in the face of the issue for which we are gathered
here." On Palestinian Radio, a listener said the time had
come "to slaughter all the Jews (and) to appoint a Caliph
for Palestine." This went on without anyone participating
in the programme - Waqf leaders and members of the Pales-
tinian Legislative Council from the Jerusalem electoral
district - protesting.
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