God's Gold by Sean Kingsley Page A

Haram al-Sharif is subject to Israel’s legal system. She considers the physical damage perpetrated to be extreme. Although it would be far too politically insensitive for her as a Jew to monitor the archaeological destruction personally, the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount has used an eye in the sky—aerial photography—to observe the changes over the past five years. The camera reveals trenches cut up to forty-two feet deep into the ancient Mount.
    â€œAncient structures have been greatly damaged,” she confirmed. “We calculate that 20,000 tons of ancient fill have been dumped outside, of which we are trying to save about 5 percent. The majority is lost forever among the modern rubbish of the Azariah garbage dumps.” Literally hundreds of trucks unloaded their ancient cargoes into these places and who knows what has been lost. For Mazar, the Temple Mount is a sealed box stuffed with ancient archaeological riches. “The percentage of probability for finding treasure is very high,” she argued. “There is no reason why inscriptions shouldn’t be preserved deep among the ruins.”
    Surely both sides would have learned from these mistakes now that the scale of the destruction is widely known. But no. “The Waqf couldn’t care less,” bemoaned Dr. Mazar. “It doesn’t even care about its own Islamic heritage. The goal is religious fundamentalism, and archaeology is absolutely not going to stop them on their way. The Arabs believe they can twist and rewrite history and that a mosque has existed here since the time of Adam and Eve. Their actions are deliberately provocative, a very extreme fundamentalist Islamic approach. Similarly, the Israel Antiquities Authority has to fulfill Israeli law, but it doesn’t due to political pressure from the prime minister. This is a boomerang issue.” It was a dilemma that Dr. Mazar was sure would come back to haunt Israel.
    The ever-swirling politics make objectivity difficult. Even though I found Eilat Mazar’s tone harsh, I sympathized with her frustration born of deep love for all the archaeology of the Temple Mount area. Her words continued to ring in my ears while I plodded back up the hillsideof the City of David: the Temple Mount is the most fantastic site in the world, yet so many scholars won’t debate its cultural fate because politics monstrously overshadows all else. Why is UNESCO so impotent in this matter, I wondered, as I set off to confront a worldview that made the archaeological battle for the Mount sound like child’s play. Gershon Salomon, director of the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, awaited me in central Jerusalem.

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KEEPING THE FAITH?
    Jerusalem is an ultramodern city in an ancient, battered, and bruised skin. Inspired economically and culturally by its big brother, the United States, Israel swiftly embraced the consumer revolution in the late 1980s. Away from the winding medieval alleys of the Old City bazaar, many of Jerusalem’s bars are as hip as those found in Soho. Its youth are more conscious of changing fashions than down-dressing London and, in terms of overall quality and value for money, from breads and salads to seafood, its restaurants put the UK to shame. Israelis love complaining, and skimping on portions or stale servings will buy you an earful of abuse.
    The Temple Mount Faithful occupy offices tucked away behind Jerusalem’s busiest commercial district. Almost all of the trade around Yafo Street is local these days, and has been since tourists stopped visiting once the Second Intifada kicked off in 1999 and suicide bombers targeted pizza and falafel restaurants. Even local Israelis watch their backs when they go out. As a friend explained, every time you put on a coat, hat, and lipstick, you prepare for a game of Russian roulette: Who will bite the bullet today?
    Gershon Salomon’s office