August 6, 2001

THE PHOTO at left shows the Temple Mount in the mid-1990s, prior to the majority of the Palestinian excavations and destruction of religious heritage. The inset photo shows the Southeast corner of the Temple Mount on Feb. 26, 2001. Temple Mount grounds that were previously covered with trees have been paved over. At the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, rubble is visible. The Palestinians started to construct a staircase, leading down to the two arched entrances that are visible in the photograph. (Photos courtesy of Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount)

Congressmen want U.S. to protest
Palestinian changes of Temple Mount
___WASHINGTON (BP)--A group of Congressmen is seeking to cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it halts destructive excavations of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
___The Temple Mount Preservation Act, H.R. 2566, introduced by Rep. Eric Cantor, R.-Va., with 16 co-sponsors, would bar all aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is chaired by Yasser Arafat, as long as it continues unauthorized excavations that have destroyed artifacts on the Temple Mount.
___The United States is to provide $125 million in direct aid this year to the Palestinian Authority through the U.S. Agency for International Development. That amount is part of a three-year package of $400 million appropriated last year by Congress. The United States also gives $75 million annually in indirect aid to the authority through USAID.
___In introducing the bill, Cantor provided photographic evidence of massive destruction of archeological sites.
___Bulldozing of the Temple Mount, including the destruction of antiquities that date back to the time of the first temple, began in early 1998, Cantor said. Those antiquities have been dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley and, according to some reports, sold on the black market, the Jerusalem Post reported.
___The excavations have occurred under the authority of Arafat and Mufti Ikrima Sabri, the Muslim administrator of the mount.
___Cantor described the excavations as "one of the most unprecedented attacks on religious heritage of our time."
___"Thousands of years of Judeo-Christian heritage is under siege at this most sacred of sites to Christianity, Judaism and Islam," Cantor said in introducing his bill July 19. "Anybody with any reasonable perspective would hold that the Temple Mount should be preserved and any disturbance thereon closely monitored."
___The Temple Mount was the site of the Jewish temple built by King Solomon and the rebuilt temple that stood during Jesus' earthly ministry. The Dome of the Rock, a Muslim Mosque, is now located on the mount.
___Critics charge the destruction of Temple Mount artifacts is another step by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to rewrite the history of the Jews as one bereft of any connection to Jerusalem. In 1998, Sabri declared Jews have no right to the Temple Mount, Cantor said.
___Sabri also said recently, "There is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history," according to a report in the Boston Globe.
___Meanwhile, Arafat has barred Jewish and Christian worshippers, as well as the news media, from the mount.
___Citing photos provided by the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, Cantor said the evidence "shows that Arafat is intent on erasing Judeo-Christian connections to the holy site."

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