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.