WASHINGTON – While three successive Israeli governments have failed to stop the wholesale destruction of Jerusalem Temple antiquities by the Islamic Religious Trust, or Waqf, a Republican U.S. congressman from Virginia is making a bid to do so.
Rep. Eric Cantor is sponsoring a measure designed to halt all U.S. financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority until excavation beneath the Temple Mount is stopped.
Supporters of the bill say it will send a message to PA Chairman Yasser Arafat that “desecration” of the Temple Mount will no longer be tolerated.
The Temple Mount came under Israeli control in 1967 during the Six Day War. But Israeli archeologists were frustrated when the government refused to let them dig through the ruins of the First and Second Jewish Temples.
Still, they dreamed that one day such careful excavations would take place. Today, some fear that chance is gone forever.
Since 1996 the Muslim authorities granted administrative authority over the Temple Mount have used bulldozers, dump trucks and mechanical stone-cutters to carve up the ruins of Solomon’s Stables and the Eastern Hulda Gate and turn them into massive mosques capable of accommodating 15,000 worshippers.
It didn’t surprise anyone when Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government turned a blind eye to the deconstruction. What is shocking is that it continues to this day – under the watch of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
It was largely this kind of Muslim provocation that set the stage for Sharon’s controversial visit to the Temple Mount last Sept. 28.
“The Temple Mount is in our hands and will remain in our hands,” Sharon said during his visit. “It is the holiest site in Judaism and it is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount.”
That’s when the stones started flying – as the delegation was leaving the site. Full-scale riots began the next day and the first casualties along with them.
And that was the beginning of the current Al-Aqsa Intifada that has the Mideast poised on the brink of war. In effect, it began because Israeli officials did too little too late in halting the reprehensible digs in sacred Jewish ruins. Was Sharon’s visit truly provocative? No, it was reactive. Did he say something inflammatory? Hardly, by the standards of the Middle East.
What’s more, Sharon was right. The Jews can never permit such an archeological travesty to occur again. The latest Arab propaganda campaign claims that there never was a Jewish Temple on the Mount. It seems clear that the Waqf has set out on a destructive mission to ensure there is no trace of such a presence to future generations.
That, my friends, is the provocation. Imagine if a Jewish group stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque and began dynamiting it or ramming it with heavy construction equipment. How long would that be tolerated by the Arab world?
If Israel hasn’t acted unilaterally by now to stop the destruction of the holiest site – some say the only holy site – of Judaism, it may never act. That’s why the Cantor bill is an appropriate and welcome action in Washington. If Israel won’t stop the excavation, maybe a cutoff of funds to Arafat and the PA will.
Cantor sees the destruction as an attempt to erase all historical evidence of the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, thereby discrediting Israeli claim to sovereignty. It is described as “an attempt to eradicate valuable archeological evidence of construction and events in Christian and Hebrew religious writings and its corollary of denying Americans the validation of needed information to comprehend and enhance their Judeo-Christian heritage.”
What are the chances for passage? If it can be steered to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote, it might stand an excellent chance of passage. It might have a tougher fight in the U.S. Senate. And then the legislation would need to be signed into law by President Bush.
If Israel is waiting for a sign from Washington to act, the wait may be a long one.
Or, perhaps Israel is waiting for what some view as the inevitability of renewed war in the Middle East before asserting its military authority over the most sacred ground in Jerusalem.
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WND Staff