ZOA Press Release on Temple Mount

Here.

Lots of good information, like this:-

This is but the latest episode in archeological vandalism beneath Temple Mount committed by the Waqf:

In 1970, the Waqf excavated a pit without supervision that exposed a 16-foot-long, six-foot-thick wall that scholars believe may well be the eastern wall of the Herodian Temple complex. An inspector from the antiquities department saw it and composed a handwritten report (still unpublished) before the wall was dismantled, destroyed and covered up.

In 1993, Israel’s Supreme Court found that the Waqf had violated Israel’s antiquities laws on 35 occasions, many involving irreversible destruction of important archaeological remains. The court declined to enter an injunction, however, expressing its confidence that in the future Israeli authorities would correct their past errors.

In 1999, to accommodate a major expansion of an underground mosque into what is known popularly as Solomon’s Stables in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount, the Waqf dug an enormous stairway down to the mosque. Hundreds of truckloads of archaeologically rich dirt were dug with mechanical equipment and then dumped into the adjacent Kidron Valley. When archaeology student Zachi Zweig began to explore the mounds of dirt for antiquities, he was arrested at the behest of the Israel Antiquities Authority — for excavating without a permit. Since then, a major legal sifting operation of this dirt by Professor Gabriel Barkai of Bar Ilan University (together with Mr. Zweig) has uncovered thousands of artifacts from all periods going back more than 3,000 years. They include a seal impression of a probable brother of someone mentioned in the Bible, Babylonian arrowheads dating to the destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C. (as well as other arrowheads from battles on the Temple Mount), thousands of coins (many dating to the Great Revolt against Rome), beautiful jewelry and even an ancient Egyptian scarab.

The Palestinian Arabs, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), have a long record of desecrating and destroying Jewish religious sites and denying the Jewish historical and religious connection to Jerusalem and Israel.

Statement on Jewish holy sites by PA leaders:

Yasser Arafat: “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine” (Ma’ariv, October. 11, 1996).

Then PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Hassan Tahboub, “The Western Wall is Muslim property. It is part of the al-Aqsa Mosque. Once we control it, Jews must remain six feet away from our holy wall” (November 23, 1997).

PA Ministry of Information: Thirty years of Israeli excavation has revealed Islamic holy places, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins, but no tangible evidence of anything Jewish was revealed in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jews have implanted a biblical myth in the mind of the world,” (December 12, 1997).

Walid M. Awad, Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO’s Palestine Ministry of Information: ” Jerusalem was never a Jewish city” (IMRA news agency, December. 25, 1996).

Jarid al-Kidwa, a Palestinian ‘historian’ broadcast in the PA media, has stated, “The stories of the Torah and the Bible did not take place in the Land of Israel -- they occurred in the Arabian peninsula, primarily in Yemen” (Ha’aretz, July 6, 1997).

Jewish holy sites have been destroyed, vandalized or left in disrepair by the Palestinians whenever PA control has been extended, even temporarily, to localities containing them:

In September 1996, widespread Arab rioting broke out in response to false rumors circulated about alleged Jewish efforts to undermine the structure of the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian rioters set upon and destroyed the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva at Joseph Tomb in Nablus, also killing Israeli soldiers trying to guard it. 500 Arabs also stormed Rachel’s Tomb, the third holiest Jewish site, firing weapons and hurling Molotov cocktails and torching the scaffolding of new construction on the site, which was saved only due to determined efforts under fire by fire-fighting units.

October 2000: During the first days of the Palestinian terrorist campaign, Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus was entirely destroyed by a Palestinian mob of 5,000 and its contents incinerated after the Israeli garrison guarding it was temporarily withdrawn during fighting. It has since been rebuilt by the PA -- as a mosque supposedly honoring a Muslim figure. Muslims assert exclusive right to the site and Jews have been unable to re-enter it.

October 2000: The ancient Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho, rediscovered only after the 1967 war, was completely and deliberately destroyed, though its Torah scrolls were saved. The Na’aran synagogue in Jericho, which is believed to have been built in the 5th or 6th century, and which contains a mosaic floor, is now abandoned and derelict.