MKs call for inquiry into Temple Mount construction
By Etgar Lefkovits

JERUSALEM (July 17) - The commander of the police station in Jerusalem's Old City, Nisso Shacham, affirmed yesterday that the Wakf, the Muslim religious trust, continues to use a stone-cutting machine on the Temple Mount, but said this is apparently for work approved by the previous government.

"I will also tell you something that will be news for you. The stone cutter does not just work on Wednesdays. It works every day," Shacham told a meeting of the Knesset Education Committee called to discuss reports of unsupervised Wakf construction work at the site.

Shacham said the machine has been at the site for the past year and nine months and, citing a petition to the High Court of Justice on the issue, noted that the work being carried out is surfacing approved last year by the previous government.

Shacham's remarks at the stormy two-hour meeting followed police denials that any work was going on at the site. Based on police information, Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau told the Knesset last week there is no work going on now at the Mount.

But archeologists from the non-partisan Committee Against Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount provided Landau with aerial photographs taken earlier this month which show a stone-cutting machine and a tractor at work. Following a Friday afternoon meeting with the archeologists, Landau's spokesman said he was checking their report.

At yesterday's Education Committee meeting - the third on the issue in less tan two years - MK Shaul Yahalom berated Antiquities Authority Director-General Shuka Dorfman for refusing to meet with the archeologists from the committee - and Dorfman stormed out of the session.

Before he left the room, Dorfman had said there is "no doubt that there had been archeological damage on the Mount," though he denied any work is going on now. However, with non-Muslims barred from the Mount since the beginning of the intifada last September, Dorfman repeated that his reports were based solely on the information he gets from police.

Earlier the meeting turned into a shouting match between Arab and Jewish MKs, when MK Talab a- Sanaa derided the reports by Committee Against Destruction of Antiquities archeologists.

"Don't you have anything to do besides follow the work of tractors?" he asked. "Is this all you have to do with your time?"

"What are you afraid of - the truth?" Yahalom rejoined.

Sanaa was eventually ejected by chairman Zevulun Orlev after being called to order three times.

The meeting concluded with a call for the formation of a commission of inquiry into the reports of Temple Mount work by the Wakf, as well as an appeal to the police, Internal Security Ministry, and Antiquities Authority to consult the archeologists' committee.