The Israel Antiquities Authority is considering broadcasting real-time, 24-hour video from the work at the Kosel in a bid to allay Muslim fears that their shrine will be harmed by repair work.
Muslim leaders ridiculed the idea, and Israeli police were on heightened alert before Friday Muslim prayers at the site, imposing travel restrictions and planning for a helicopter to hover overhead.
Israel says it needs to replace a centuries-old earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which was damaged heavily in a 2004 snowstorm. It has promised the work would not harm Islamic shrines at the site, some 60 yards away, but those assurances have not calmed Muslim outrage over the project.
Lawmaker Israel Hasson said he proposed installing cameras so “all the Arab world would be able to see everything that goes on there.”
The Antiquities Authority said it was looking into how much the Webcast would cost.
Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the complex, rejected the proposal as “ridiculous.”
“This is a historical place, and their machines are destroying it,” Husseini said. “The Israelis have to stop the work and let the Waqf do the renovations.”
The ramp leads to the outer wall of the hilltop compound. But the Waqf claims jurisdiction over it because it touches the mosque complex.
The eight-month construction project has provoked small-scale protests since it began Tuesday.
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6 Responses
Stop giving in to Arab “nonsense”.
Its only a week ago that we lained the chiyuv of mechiyas amolek…the beheimos couldnt care less about the mosque…their only raison d’etre is to antagonoze yiden and klal tyisroel…they need an excuse to throw stones at those that are mispalel in the koisel…
This is all hisgarus b’umos
They should use the cameras so everyone could see. One of the exciting things about EY is that when they do excavations (such as what they are doing in Ir Dovid, the original Yerushalayim) they dont block it from people’s view – its out in the open. In the USA they woulc block it off for years while the work was done but not in EY. Kudos to the Izzys for that!
On the subject of cameras, perhaps they could also install cameras on the other side of the wall so everyone could see the damage they are doing – but claim not to be doing – on Har HaBayis????
To all you “we are in galusniks” out there, before you start hitting your keyboard, I know we are in galus and we really have no control over the Har, it was a suggestion as well as a point.
why dont they just free a few hundred terrorists, and throw in gush etzion…
justano
Thats not even funny, throw in Baghdad, and some of Lebanon since its part of our yerusha anyway.