Waqf Keeps On Building, Destroying The Temple Mount

The Committee to Prevent Damage to the Temple Mount Antiquities says that the Moslem Waqf has begun taking steps to erect a memorial to Feisal Husseini on the Temple Mount. The Committee fears that this will cause further damage to Jewish artifacts there, and complains that Public Security Minister Uzi Landau has taken barely any action against the harmful Waqf activities there. The members met with him a few days ago and accused him of giving backing to the government's continued weakness in this matter. The meeting was tense and produced no concrete results.

Yisrael Kaspi, member of the Committee, told Arutz-7 today:
"We've known of the plans to make a memorial for Husseini for months. We have informed the relevant bodies, and they give us all sorts of evasive answers; the only thing they don't do is take action against the continuing destruction on the Temple Mount." He said that he and his colleagues had met with Minister Landau this week, "for the third time since he took office, but it was a very difficult meeting. He keeps ignoring the facts, and doesn't want to see, hear, or speak. We bring him intelligence, testimonies in writing and orally, and aerial photos of the continuing Waqf construction there - but he ignores them all. He uses the police to put a closure on the Temple Mount, so that the public can't see anything...
"I'll give you an extreme example: On July 11, he stood up in the Knesset and announced that for months, tractors had not been working on the Temple Mount. Two days later, we came to his office and showed him 80 photos of tractors working there in the preceding week. We are still waiting for his retraction, and for his admission that the reports he received from the police led him to lie to the Knesset. There are other similar cases as well…
"On the other hand, he did put a stop to the flooring work, and also stopped the trucks from coming in - at least formally, but the Waqf and Islamic Movement people still manage to sneak in all sorts of building materials and smuggle out antiquities. Worst of all, they have been carrying out an extensive operation of cleaning out underground caverns and cisterns - headed by an Israeli-Arab who is blatantly breaking the law without anyone enforcing it against him - for the purpose of bringing 'holy waters' from Mecca."

Archaeologist Eilat Mazar recently explained this issue to Arutz-7:
"They [the Waqf] claim that they are performing 'routine cleaning of water cisterns' - something that long-time Jerusalem archaeologists never heard of before. What they are really doing is emptying out the cisterns of valuable artifacts of first-degree importance… According to Arab media reports, there is really a much broader plan: to bring 'holy water' from the Zam-Zam spring in Mecca to the Temple Mount cisterns, thus 'upgrading' the status of the Temple Mount in Moslem eyes and obviating the need for Moslem worshippers to go to Mecca; they will be able to obtain the same spiritual 'value' by visiting the Temple Mount."