Antiqities boss: Wakf work on Mount caused serious damage

By Etgar Lefkovits (Jerusalem Post July 26)

JERUSALEM (July 26) - Antiquities Authority head Amir Drori, who is responsible for supervising the work carried out on the Temple Mount, confirmed yesterday that the Wakf's work on the Mount this year has done serious damage to antiquities.

Speaking to the Knesset Education and Culture Committee during a long and tense meeting, he added, however, that "Our ability to monitor what is going on at the site is better than it was at any time over the past two years. My conscience is clear over the supervision we are doing."

The meeting was held to discuss the construction of a prayer area at Solomon's Stables on the Temple Mount, work that Drori has in the past termed an "archeological crime."

Speaking for the government, Minister Haim Ramon said no government since 1967 had enforced the law on the Temple Mount.

"The situation today is the best it has been from Israel's perspective since 1990," he said.

Others clearly did not agree.

The archeological supervision on the Mount has improved only slightly since 1996, when the Wakf expelled all the archeologists monitoring construction work at the site following the opening of an exit to the Hasmonean tunnel in 1996, Dr. Shmuel Berkovitz, of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount said.

"Until September '96, there was some sort of supervision" he said. "The Wakf would show the archeologists from the Antiquities Authority their construction plans in advance, would listen amiably to the archeologists' comments and then go ahead and do what they wanted. Then, for the next three years, following the opening of the exit to the tunnel, the Antiquities Authority never set foot on the Temple Mount" Berkovitz said.

"Today, the only slight improvement that has occurred is that Antiquities Authority archeologists are allowed back on the Mount, but they cannot supervise, cannot photograph, cannot tell the Wakf not to carry out work.

"They can only visit the site under police escort" he continued. "This is not supervision."

Jerusalem Police chief, Cmdr. Yair Yitzhaki, said, however, that all the work that has been carried out by the Wakf on the Temple Mount since he assumed his post nearly four years ago was done with the "full knowledge and consent of the political echelon."

"There has never been archeological supervision on the Temple Mount in the full meaning of the word" he said. "We have succeeded in bring the situation back to what it was in 1996, and today the inspectors are aware of what is going on."

Though it was scheduled several weeks ago, the fact that the meeting was taking place while the Camp David talks were still going on increased the tension.

The grueling meeting quickly turned political, despite pleas from the archeologists and committee chairman Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party) to leave politics out of the discussion.

"It could very well be that this whole discussion is no longer relevant because of the concessions that Prime Minister Barak is making at this very moment in Camp David regarding sovereignty over the Temple Mount," said Likud MK Dan Naveh.

"You should hide in shame" replied Ramon. "You, the heroes of the Western Wall tunnel, have the hutzpa to raise this issue and visit the Temple Mount, when during the time you served as cabinet secretary in the previous government, the archeologists were expelled from the site and you did nothing."

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