Re: Trashing Jewish Holy Sites

However this does not describe the situation. I have been following this in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post for years. As usual a US, jewish magazine is less honest on the subject than Israeli sources. It is also a neocon, warmongering magazine should anyone care to read the rag online.

The most important fact is this hill is at the center of the political feud over who has the right to rule Jerusalem. Israeli "archaeologists", when they are not busy discovering David's palace again are in it with both feet supporting the Israeli political side.

Another well known fact is that there are six surviving descriptions of Herod's temple in which information on its location can be found. All six preclude this hill.

Another well known fact is the entire Wailing Wall/Temple Mount can not be traced back further than the late 19th c. There is no mention of any such thing from before that time.

Archaeologists not in this political dog fight more or less openly admit the entire OT is a myth including Solomon and his temple and biblical Israel. The Reform prayerbook in the US has been revised to reflect this knowledge.

Keeping in mind these jewish Israelis are the foreigners lets look at it in detail.

Peter Jason wrote:
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=53C06FE5-A640-43CA-96B6-3DA6C17D80E5
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, September 14,
2007
Every time someone daubs a swastika or
anti-Semitic epithet on a synagogue in any
American city, there is a quick, firm and
loud condemnation from Jewish leaders,
"watchdog" agencies, even leaders of other
faiths and usually government officials.
Yet remarkably, as the holiest site in all of
Judaism and its rich antiquities are
deliberately and methodically desecrated and
even obliterated, there is barely a peep,
though mostly no outcry at all.
How can this be?

First off, it is not, not even by the religious. Judaism has no tradition regarding the "sacredness" of the temple per se, only of the Holy of Holies.

What is being done none is maintenance. Anything being disturbed now only loses the record of the original power and water lines being laid.

In a previous first time disturbance expanding an underground mosque the dirt was examined in detail. A few minor trinkets from the 1st and 2nd c. AD period were found and nothing more. The Waqf, the Muslim Trust which controls the mount, had said there was nothing of interest before the Jews sifted through the dirt and confirmed that fact.

For those who may be unaware, the Temple
Mount is the site in Jerusalem of both the
First Temple and the Second Temple - which
Jews believe is the resting place of G-d on
Earth - is quite literally under attack.
Heavy machinery and excavation equipment is
gouging, tearing and smashing this sacred
ground and the artifacts that were preserved
beneath it until the Muslim officials
(operating as per the Palestinian Authority)
recently began ripping it apart.

Intelligent people know there was no "first" temple and the second, i.e only, temple was not on this hill.

The unfortunate thing is the six items mentioned in the openly reduces the number of possible locations for that temple to so few that it could be found in less than a year if that were their interest.

Based on what some archaeologists are saying,
this may be the worst devastation at this
site since the Romans destroyed the Second
Temple in 70 CE.

Those are the political arkies not the real ones.

"The Temple Mount is one of the most
fantastic historical and archaeological
monuments. It needs to be preserved for all
humankind, and people are forgetting this,"
says Dr. Eilat Mazar, a leader of the Public
Committee for the Prevention of the
Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple
Mount.
"Many people don't know that under the Temple
Mount there is a whole world [of
antiquities]."

Except after sifting through tons of waste from the older excavation and this current maintenance effort it is clear there is nothing to find that can't be found digging almost any place in the old city.

Mazar, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center,
and a scholar at the Institute of Archaeology
at Hebrew University, added on "The ZOA
Middle East Report" radio show: "The whole
behavior toward the Temple Mount is a crime
really."

Knowing there is nothing of interest and still saying this shows the only intention is to prevent the Muslims from exercising any control over the hill. As I said, political.

A little background:

Since the Jewish nation entered the land of
Israel, the city of Jerusalem has been the
centerpiece for the Jewish people. For
thousands of years, there has been a
continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem. For
millennia Jews have prayed for the peace and
sanctity of Jerusalem three times a day and
face toward Jerusalem to pray.

As we know there is no physical evidence the city existed in any form prior to the 6th c. BC.

At Jerusalem's heart is the Temple Mount,
where the Israelites were commanded by G-d to
build his Temple. The Temple was first
destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and
after the Jews were allowed to return to
Israel, they rebuilt the Temple (the Second
Temple) on this same site, where it stood
until the Romans destroyed it in the year 70.

And there is no evidence for any part of this Babylonian myth.

Some 600 years later, after the Islamic
religion was founded and then became a world
power, the Muslims conquered Jerusalem and
first built a shrine to their Prophet
Mohammad ("The Dome of the Rock") and later,
the Al-Aksa Mosque.

Though Jews continued to live in Jerusalem,
for the next 1,300 or so years Jews did not
have any control over the holiest site in all
of Judaism.

Nor did they at any time claim that it was in any manner holy or that the temple had been built on it.

Ashara's temple in Jerusalem had eight sides just like the mosque. It is the only eight-sided mosque in all Islam. That is a pretty big hint as to what was originally on that site.

It seemed that this would change after the
British Mandate offered the land to the
Jewish people to re-establish a nation on its
historical homeland, and once the League of
Nations (predecessor of the United Nations)
approved the Partition Plan carving out a
nation for the Jews and a nation for the
Arabs (The British had already given most of
the land of historically Jewish "Palestine"
to the Arabs to create the nation of
Jordan.).

Historically the Palestinians are Syrians. They are described as such by Herodotus in the 5th c. BC. This "Jordan" crap is a Zionist invention. But then no one ever said the Zionists were educated.

While the Jewish people gladly accepted the
sliver of land the world offered them for a
nation, the Arabs rejected the land offered
to them, and on the May, 1948 day that Israel
declared its independence, the armies of five
Arab nations attacked Israel, with Jordan
illegally seizing control of the Old City of
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

It was not the UN's to give away.

The Jordanians forbade the Jews from setting
foot anywhere near the Temple Mount, and also
from even being able to see its only
remnant - the Western Wall (known also as
"the Wailing Wall") -- except for one lone
vantage point.
After the Jordanians again attacked Israel
during the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israelis
drove back the Arabs, liberating the Temple
Mount. It was a joyous moment for the country
and Jewry worldwide.
But no sooner did the Jewish people regain
control over their holiest site did Israel's
leaders give the Palestinian-Arabs the
authority to administer the site through the
Wakf or "Muslim trust."
To further mollify the Arabs, Israeli
officials have mandated that only for a few
hours each week non-Muslims may ascend the
Temple Mount, and Jews and Christians are
forbidden to ever pray on the Temple Mount.

And the observant Jews are prohibited from making that visit for the risk of stepping on the Holy of Holies. So we only have the political making an issue of this.

This has been the status quo since 1967.
While the Temple Mount has been under the
control of the Israeli government, it has
permitted the Muslim authorities to call the
shots: limiting access and freedom of
religion to non-Muslims, while frequently
conducting excavations allegedly to make
repairs or additions to the Islamic
structures.

There is no freedom of religion guarantee in Israel, not even for Jews. The Orthodox control Judaism in Israel. It is a crime to attempt to convert a Jew in Israel. It is a crime to bring more than one or two bibles into Israel and there has to be a good reason for the second one, like a gift, or the second one is a crime.

As to permitting the owners of the hill to call the shots, that is quite magnanimous of the foreigners. It is not their usual approach to the Wogs.

Going hand and glove with this situation has
been the constant denial by the
Palestinian-Arab leaders and clergy as well
as much of the Muslim and Arabs worlds that
the two Jewish Temples existed at this site,
and that the Temple Mount has no religious or
historical significance to the Jewish people
whatsoever.

Educated people know that it correct. Those well read in current affairs in Israel know this is purely a political feud.

The current round of "excavations" by the
Muslim authorities on the Temple Mount
today - according to them to allegedly
replace electrical cables - are seen by
renowned archaeologists and others as the
continuation and acceleration of previous
efforts by the Muslims and Arabs to erase the
Jewish heritage there by removing the "facts
on the ground" and as many traces as possible
that this was a Jewish holy place.

A few Roman era artifacts are going to do that how?

As if this is not obscene enough, the Israeli
government can step in at any time and stop
this desecration, but has chosen not to
intercede. And, the Israeli police and the
government's Antiquities Authority have been
preventing the esteemed archaeologists and
concerned activists from intervening. They
have even interfered with and blocked efforts
to document the damage.

In this case they are the same, they are activist arkies.

Yes, the government of Israel led by the
prime minister is aiding and abetting the
destruction not only of the most venerated
area to Jews in the world, but also an effort
that could ultimately lead to the very
delegitimizing of that government and the
nation of Israel -- should the Muslims and
Arabs be able to complete their diabolical
plot and convince most of the world that the
Jewish Temples were never there..

If that were the case then it was all delegitimized by the Romans in 70AD.

"The Israeli authorities actually almost do
nothing, and if they do, they kind of
observe," Mazar says, noting that there are
supposed to be careful methods of excavation.
The site and work should be meticulously
documented, there should be measuring,
collecting of fragments and the like.

"They [Antiquities Authority] don't fulfill
their obligations because they are told not
to do so [by the government], not that they
don't know how," Mazar charged.

"Tractors are working on the Temple Mount.
This is a place that no tractors should be. .
It looks like a construction site . ."

Because it should look like a construction site.

Mazar said that "The prime minister should
order right away that no machines should be
on the Temple Mount." "We need people to
appeal directly to the prime minister and
demand what seems to be very obvious: that
the Temple Mount compound should be kept
preserved."
But, the archaeologist noted that, "Many
people really don't know [about the damage]"
taking place

"The Israeli media and other media is not
allowed to go on the Temple Mount and take
shots and really interview people," she said.
"The media don't cover the issue or get
people's awareness."
For many who are aware of what is going on,
Mazar said, "the Temple Mount is a political
issue only."

And for those who have examined the dirt and confirmed the Waqf description of it an uninteresting they know it is only a political issue. This confirmation was well reported in Israel.

But obviously politics should not be a factor
when it comes to destroying holy sites.

Even though no one disagrees that it was destroyed long ago by the Romans. Again, this is a purely political issue.

This is a desecration that cannot be covered
up with white-wash as leaders of so many
Jewish congregations have done the world over
when their synagogues have been targeted by
vandals. Once the Temple Mount artifacts are
fully obliterated, the damage cannot be
undone with a fresh coat of paint.

Usually it is done by Jews and that is what is covered up.

If we protest and condemn when a synagogue is
defaced, surely we, led by our leaders,
should be shouting and perhaps crying over
this worst-of-all defacements threatening not
only our religion, but also our nationhood.

To give the devil his due, his whine is good enough for Vaudeville.

--
Intelligent Design is abbreviated ID because those are the first two letters
in the word idiot.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3851
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Old Testament http://www.giwersworld.org/bible/ot.phtml a6
.

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