Another Letter Not Published in the NYTimes

Robert Cohen's sympathetic remarks on the destruction of a holy site ("Return to Bamiyan", Oct. 29) as well as his denouncing of "fanatical soldiers of Islam" cannot bring back the carved-in-stone Buddhas. But what the Muslim Waqf is currently destroying in Jerusalem can be halted.

If, as Cohen writes, "absence is presence", can the world aid in preserving the buried Jewish archeological artifacts on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah which are systematically being uncovered and either destroyed or thrown away? Will Western civilization stand by while Islamic fanaticsm continue to first deny and then eradicate the Jewish identity of the Temple Mount? Or will what is now present become absent in the future?


Yisrael Medad,
Shiloh
Mobile Post Efraim 44830
Israel