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Jerusalem dig unites Palestinians

By Matti Friedman
The Associated Press

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — In the space of one day, a small archaeological dig in Jerusalem's Old City became a rallying call aimed at uniting Palestinians against Israel.

The dig — a few waterlogged sandbags and black buckets of earth behind aluminum walls — is meant to prepare the way for a new pedestrian walkway up to one of the world's most holy sites, the compound known to Muslims as the noble sanctuary.

Though archaeologists insist there is no danger to the walled compound, it inflamed Muslim fears that Israel was planning to damage Islamic holy sites and briefly caused rival Palestinian factions to put aside their differences and condemn Israel together. The new walkway is supposed to replace an unsafe old ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago.

But even minor maintenance can have deep implications in Jerusalem.

For Palestinians, no symbol is more emotive than the noble sanctuary, where the Prophet Mohammad ascended to heaven in a nighttime journey recounted in the Holy Koran. The compound houses Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock Shrine.

When Israel opened a tunnel alongside the compound in 1996, it sparked clashes that killed 80 people. In 2000, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the site. The next day, riots erupted, leading to years of violence.

With the Palestinians in the throes of a bloody internal conflict, the Israeli dig offered a chance to display a rare unity.

"Israel, which today is playing with fire when it touches Al Aqsa, knows the consequences of this playing with fire," said Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Cabinet and advocates Israel's destruction.

Fighting between Hamas and Fateh, the more moderate movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has claimed over 130 lives since May. Despite the internal fissures, Fateh and nearly all other Palestinian factions were not far behind Mishaal.

Islamic Jihad, a small and violent group funded by Syria and Iran and responsible for dozens of suicide attacks on Israelis, warned on its website that they would "shake the land underneath the legs of the Zionists" and that Israel was "opening the door for a new war with the Islamic nation." The Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a Fateh-linked group, weighed in with similar fiery threats, along with Hamas' Qassam Brigades. Inside Israel, Raed Salah, the fiery leader of the Islamic movement, called on his followers to come from all over the country to protect the site.

But on Monday, the high compound was placid and nearly empty: A handful of tourists walked around snapping pictures in a brisk wind, eyed by Israeli policemen and guards from the Islamic Waqf, which administers the holy site.

Adnan Husseini, the waqf's director, said he was concerned the new walkway could damage the original ramp up to the compound's Magharebah Gate. The ramp, he said was waqf property and the new construction constituted a violation of the site.

"This is a very dangerous project that will damage things of great historical value in this very sensitive place," Husseini said.

Husseini said he suspected that the excavations around the holy site were attempts to tunnel under it, and demanded that Israel cease all digs immediately.

"We call for an end to all excavations," he said.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority, rejected claims that the excavations posed any danger to the holy site.

Tuesday, February 6, 2007