Shmuel Rosner: "I do not eat pumpkin. That is true."

I just caught a lecture by Shmuel Rosner, former chief of news at Ha'aretz, as well as their Washington correspondent, and now a highly influential blogger at the J-Post. The lecture, which was co-sponsored by the Judaica collection of the Doe Library and the Berkeley journalism school, concerned media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab conflict. Rosner spoke from a lectern that has also belonged recently to Benny Morris, and the journalist at times struck the historian's muscular pose, affected the same contempt for naiveté and for leftist partisanship. I eagerly anticipated his views on Ha'aretz. He said the left-of-center daily is at times too critical of Israel, and may even have caused the IDF excessive pain. Rosner's goal was to describe the community of reporters and organizations covering Israel, and to brief us on how to discern bullshit.

As for the Israeli media, those of us who rely on the Anglophone Israeli media are woefully out of touch with the internal political discourse in Israel. That discourse is created, he argued, on TV, and in the pages of Yediot, Maariv, and, now, Yisrael Hayom.

But the foreign media was the real focus.

The lecture was full of lists. The four cardinal sins of foreign journalists in the Middle East:

1. Obsession

2. Prejudice

3. Ignorance

4. Condescension

5. Unprofessionalism -- chiefly a matter of dereliction of fact-(re)-checking. (Not officially on the list, but something he lingered over later with regard to the unreliability of the Palestinian media, as well as the merely innocuous nature of the Swedish reporter who accused the IDF of harvesting Palestinian organs).

Rosner's rules for readers of foreign reporting:

1. What leaders say behind closed doors doesn't matter. What matters is what they say in public, to their own people, in their own language.

2. Israelis and Palestinians can't keep secrets. You will know what you want to know...eventually.

3. Commissions and reports of all types have little value.

4. Envoys of the US and other world powers are always too optimistic -- and almost bound to fail.

5. Do not overestimate the impact of the White House or other foreign intervention.

6. Just because someone doesn't speak English, it doesn't mean they're dumb.

7. Arabs generally have a lot of patience.

8. Never underestimate the power of domestic politics to dictate events.

9. Beware of predictions.

10. Beware of polls.

11. Beware of reporters with political biases.

12. There are many groups in the Middle East that hate each other, but they all agree on at least this: Americans are naive.

I found the scolding of foreign journalists quite satisfying. Rosner painted a vivid picture of what I imagined as a horde of professional gawkers gathering their luggage and translators at the carousel at Ben Gurion Airport, and then greedily speeding to as close to the scene of the carnage as they could get during the last two wars. And with print media downsizing everywhere, the correspondents are becoming ever less versed in the local cultures they cover. The result is a foreign media that covers Israel as a conflict, not as a country. Sounds problematic to me. We get the Israeli leadership's sound-bite, then the Palestinian's. Gazans are suffering these deprivations; now, look -- look how much it sucks to live in Sderot! The foreign media makes our heads swivel like the cat at the window watching the movements of birds outside. But what would the alternative be? What would covering Israel as a country really look like? I am not sure, and I wish I would have asked Rosner. To him, Israel as a country does have to be explained to (certain) Americans. Take his audiences at the American War College in Pennsylvania. Part of what is culturally idiosyncratic about Israel, Rosner explained to them, is the lack of distance between civil society and the military. "Everyone is a civilian, everyone is a soldier," said Rosner, unapologetically. But in fact, the image of Israel as a face-to-face society, where everyone knows someone who is affected by war, the rigors of the occupation, terrorism should be very familiar to readers of, say, the New York Times. This may be the way Israel really is, but it's also something that Israelis desperately want us outsiders to know. I find that very interesting.

A face-to-face society with 5 million cell phones, boasted Rosner, offers the determined journalist an almost unique opportunity to recover the truth about complex events. His paradigmatic example was the so-called massacre of Jenin in 2002. How did his team at Ha’aretz debunk the rumors of a massacre? By calling the soldiers, particularly reservists, they knew. “They couldn’t all be lying,” claimed Rosner. These informants were the “cousins’ best friends" of Rosner’s news division. Social proximity for him is a comparative advantage over foreign media in terms of access, not a journalistic liability. The fog of war was lifted, a little too effortlessly. On the other hand, Rosner insisted on the incompatability of perceptions born of different cultural contexts. Shimon Peres, so his opening joke went, isn’t the same Shimon Peres at home as abroad. Here, I thought Rosner combined not-so-satisfactorily a post-modern uncertainty about what we can really know with great faith in the capacity of the critical reader or journalist to get to the bottom of things. American journalistic pretension to objectivity almost sounded like the American naiveté he seizes upon. But his epistemology is certainly practical. There are things we can know (the Jenin massacre didn’t happen), and things we can’t (what happened to Muhammed al-Durrah).

Granted the last question, I asked about my personal cause celèbre: archaeology in East Jerusalem driven by vulgar ideology. I offered myself up as the guinea pig here. It's an Israeli media story that, for me, is opaque. I read about it in English in Ha'aretz and on the website of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. But I can't seem to figure it out. Are all the projects undertaken in the Ir David legal or illegal (under Israeli, not international law)? Was there a "cultural context" that Rosner could provide that would explain the seemingly contradictory reports? Rosner's answer, and he must have been fatigued at this point, was to draw again a distinction, however provisory, between the forces of objectivity and those of subjectivity. There are the "objective" archaeologists, and there are the ideologically driven right-wing zealots who fund and support the dubious excavations. At this point, Rosner could have taken a line from the Berkeley-version of Benny Morris, who, when an audience member complained that a faulty microphone rendered his lecture inaudible, explained bluntly, "This is the situation." In the final analysis, Rosner admitted, we have to trust someone. "I trust reporters, not newspapers," he said, naming a few of his favorite colleagues' names. Indeed, this is the situation. I agree.

The Difference Between Haifa and Jerusalem

BY CARMIAIn Bat Galim, Haifa: "At this location, the Ruth Children's Hospital will be established."

In Talpiyot, Jerusalem: "At this location, with G-d's help, an integrated medical centre will be opened, which will include family and child medicine and a centre for child development."

Shabbat shalom.

Sad Comment on Israeli Archaeology

Construction in Maaleh Hazeitim (Photo: cnn.com)

BY NOAH K.

This may seem like utter trivia, pure kishkushim just one day after Bibi met Obama, but excuse me, this is important: a ceramic vessel with a Hebrew inscription was found in East Jerusalem. Excavations in the Ras al-Amud section of the city uncovered a "water pitcher" bearing the name "Menachem," according to Ha'aretz, "marking the first time such a handle bearing this name has been found in Jerusalem." Never mind that the Israeli Antiquities Authority people who put out this information to the press don't/can't date the vessel anymore precisely than "somewhere between the Canaanite era (2200 - 1900 B.C.E.) and the end of the first Temple period (the 7th - 8th centuries B.C.E.) [sic]," which I suppose means either that they haven't looked at it very closely in their haste, or that it's the kind of household ware that sometimes doesn't change significantly for centuries, even for a millenium. Never mind the gross hazards of trying to identify this particular Menachem, with, say, some pharaonic official in the region. The point is if course that the IAA found an Israelite in East J-lem.

So what's the big deal? As I have noted before on this blog, the legal status of excavations and of antiquities uncovered in East Jerusalem (and perhaps elsewhere in the territories), both under Israeli law and under international agreements on cultural heritage, is at best murky. What drives archaeology in East Jerusalem is settler money. And the IAA and other relevant authorities tend to look the other way when enforcement of the law conflicts with the objectives of organizations like the Ir David Foundation. Here, we have something slightly different -- a salvage excavation. Construction of a "girl's school" uncovered some ancient remains that, presumably, were then taken out scientifically. Just like nearby Siwan, another hotspot neighborhood, Ras al-Amud has attracted both controversial settlement building, at Maaleh Hazeitim, and archaeological interest. As Nadav Shragai wrote last year in Ha'aretz:

"Right-wing activists ascribe great significance to widening Jewish construction in Ras al-Amud, and to realizing ownership of lots and buildings that it has managed to acquire in recent years in that vicinity.

According to their thinking, Maaleh Hazeitim makes it harder to create a Palestinian territorial corridor, a sort of "safe passage" between the West Bank to the east, and the Temple Mount."

For me, this is very disconcerting; obviously a combustible situation . The best way to avoid another outbreak of violence like the one we saw surrounding the Dung Gate controversy is to depoliticize archaeology as much as possible in greater Jerusalem.

Revenge for Mughniya in Jerusalem?

Map of Jerusalem (ArcIMS), Qiryat Moshe in orange

According to Ha'aretz, Hizbullah flagship station Al Manar reported that the "Liberators of the Galilee - Shaheed Imad Mughniya Group" took responsibility for the shooting which occurred hours ago at the Merkaz ha-Rav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Needless to say, the authenticity of this claim is highly suspect. It is extremely unlikely that the perpetrators of the attack, which has so far claimed the lives of eight, are Lebanese or directly affiliated with Hizbullah. However, they may have been Palestinians recruited by Hizbullah handlers or sympathizers. To be sure, retaliation for the assassination of Mughniya in Damascus was expected around this time.

The shooting at Merkaz ha-Rav is the worst terrorist attack that Jerusalem has seen for quite some time. The yeshiva is located in the west of the city, in Qiryat Moshe. It remains to be seen what route the terrorists took to reach the site, and where exactly they came from. I was surprised to hear that they may have infiltrated from East Jerusalem. But perhaps they took a more circuitous route.

At this point in time, it is still unclear how many attackers were involved, and what weapons they used. There are reports of one terrorist having fired an AK-47 for several "long minutes." One witness spoke of 500-600 rounds having been shot.

If the police and security forces release details of the origins of the attackers, we can be sure that there will be a major response by the IDF in Gaza or the West Bank. Tensions are already high after a roadside explosive device near the security fence around the Kisufim Crossing in Gaza destroyed an IDF jeep, killing one soldier (a Bedouin tracker). To me, that attack had all the marks of an attempted kidnapping.

Legislators Propose Bills to Ban Gay Pride Parades in Jerusalem

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev (Photo: Knesset)

Earlier today, two bills were presented for first reading by the Israeli parliament, both of which attempt to prevent gay parades from being held within the city of Jerusalem, by amending the municipality's Basic Law from above. One parliamentarian, MK Nissim Ze'ev of Shas (about which more below) condemned the homosexual community for "carrying out the self-destruction of Israeli society and the Jewish people" (Ha'aretz).

Much of our last discussion of the gay pride parade in Jerusalem focused on the opposition of the "ultra-Orthodox" or haredim, as they are called in Hebrew. I realize that for people less familiar with Israeli society and the Jewish world, there is bound to be some confusion about which particular groups this term encompasses. Hence, I hope that those who understand will excuse the rather long excursus on Israel's political and religious landscape that follows.

Until relatively recently, the term "haredim" ("trembling ones") referred almost exclusively to the various black-clad Hasidic and "Lithuanian" groups (Note: the term "Lithuanian," refers to those who identify with opponents of the Hasidic movement; the division between hasidim and their opponents dates to the late 18th century), most of whom either rejected the Zionist state or had an ambivalent attitude toward it best described as "non-Zionism." The main political organ of these groups is the United Torah Judaism party, which is a coalition of the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael and the Lithuanian Degel ha-Torah, and has 6 seats in the Israeli Knesset.

In the past three decades, we have also seen an increase in another kind of "haredi" or ultra-Orthodox population, which has found its political expression in Shas, a party which derives its guidance from rabbinic luminaries of various mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jewish) communities. This party, however, also draws much of its support from "traditional" and even secular mizrahim, having marketed itself as a party opposing Ashkenazi hegemony in Israel. It currently has 12 representatives in the Knesset, and is a member of the governing coalition.

In addition to these two groups, another constituency involved in the opposition against the gay pride parade was the national-religious or "knit kippah" camp. This sector, which is today identified as the ideological backbone of the settlement movement, is religious (sometimes "ultra-Orthodox") but embraced the state (at least until the evacuation of settlements from Gaza) and interprets the Zionist movement in religious, messianic terms. Its main political organ today is the National Union - National Religious Party, which has 9 seats.

When I watched the documentary about the Jerusalem gay pride parade discussed earlier, I noticed that the approaches used by these various sectors differ significantly from one another. For example, the national religious camp used language much closer to that of the Christian right in America, as I think I noted earlier. Shas, it seems to me, is using more populist language that appeals to "tradition." I think it is not an accident that the haredi parties are keeping a low profile, and that they are probably not going to become involved in this. They do not see this as an issue to gain votes or to mobilize the ultra-Orthodox. Their caution also reflects a distrust of modern party politics and mass organization (i.e., democratization).

Secularism, Critique, Blasphemy, and the 2006 Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade

Two of the posters ("pashkavilim") shown above are part of the campaign against the gay pride parade in Jerusalem. The one on the right reproduces a headline from Ha'aretz which states that "Religious leaders have warned that the Pride Parade in Jerusalem will cause bloodshed." The second one, on the left-hand side, is from Ma'ariv and cites Shimon Peres as saying that "The homos have crossed the line." I took this photograph in Jerusalem in late June 2006. As always: click to enlarge.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to see the New York premiere of "Jerusalem is Proud to Present" (ירושלים גאה להציג, 2007) as part of the Jewish Film Festival at Walter Reade theater. In Israel, it has been shown on Channel 2 and Channel 8 and screened at various film festivals.

This latest documentary by the Israeli director Nitzan Gilady ("In Satmar Custody," 2003) is about the attempts to hold a Gay Pride Parade (מצעד הגאווה) in Jerusalem in the summer of 2006, as part of the international "World Pride" celebrations. The parade, which was to go through the city center, had originally been scheduled for August 6. It was postponed several times, in part because of the war still raging in early August, and in part because of the fears that police would not be able to protect marchers from the wrath of religious protesters. Ultimately, the "march" was held as a rally in a closed stadium, guarded by thousands of police officers, on November 10.

Gilady's film begins with a surreal press conference attended by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders in Jerusalem, watching clips from previous gay pride parades in other parts of the world, and denouncing the planned event as an abomination. Throughout, it gives space to both supporters and opponents of the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, though it is clear that Gilady, who said after the screening that he had only recently come out to his parents, has chosen a position.

One one side, we see the activists and members of the Jerusalem Open House (English). They include the first openly gay Jerusalem city councilor, Sa'ar Netanel (Meretz), elected at the same time as its first ultra-Orthodox mayor, Uri Lupoliansky; Adam Russo, the victim of a stabbing attack at the first gay pride parade in Jerusalem on June 30, 2005 (the assailant was eventually convicted of attempted murder); Noa Sattat, the director of the Open House; and Boodi, a 19-year-old drag queen from Ramallah, who performs at Jerusalem's only gay club, Shushan (now closed), and eventually seeks asylum in the U.S. after being kidnapped by Hamas militants.

Arrayed against them, we see Mina Fenton, a national-religious municipal politician who not only organizes a group of American-born settler women using her bad English and crude sense of taste (the Americans seem slightly more attentive to public opinion) but also solicits support in Arabic from a hijab-clad by-passer. We also encounter a Brooklyn expatriate, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, a dogged opponent of the "gay political elite." Less openly involved than these somewhat ridiculous figures, are the various religious leaders of Jerusalem - the Christian clergymen, the Muslim sheikhs, and the Sephardi and Ashkenazi rabbis. Finally, we see the anonymous masses of rioting ultra-Orthodox protesters.

As the date of the parade approaches, tensions rise and the incitement on the part of the opponents of the parade becomes ever more murderous. The director and Sa'ar Netanel find themselves surrounded in a car by a mob of haredi hooligans, beating on the windows. What follows is footage from various news channels of several days of rioting in the city by young ultra-Orthodox men. Traffic blockades are set up, dumpsters set on fire, and stones thrown. The police respond mercilessly with water cannons and beatings. One foreign commentator calls it the "intifada of the ultra-Orthodox."

The rhetoric of the Open House activists is unapologetically secularist. Netanel speaks of the forces of "darkness," and the black masses of haredi men who appear in the film, anonymous and often in conditions of near-darkness, only reinforce this rhetoric without problematizing it in any way. For Netanel and others, this is a battle of democracy against theocracy, of tolerance against bigotry, of liberalism against religious fanaticism, of progress against backwardness.

The "ultra-Orthodox" intifada invites comparison with the riots that swept across the Muslim world following the Danish cartoon controversy. In both cases, the aggrieved parties - religious believers -responded with violence to what they saw as symbolic desecration (of the Prophet or of the Holy City). The "perpetrators" of these blasphemies, however, presented their actions as a matter of inherent rights and freedoms, which had to be vigorously asserted.

Last October, I attended a colloquium at UC Berkeley's Townsend Center for the Humanities, which posed the question: Is Critique Secular? The first panel discussion of the day featured a paper read by Talal Asad (Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center) called "Reflections on Blasphemy and Secular Criticism," with local superstar professors Wendy Brown (Political Science), Judith Butler (Rhetoric), and Saba Mahmood (Anthropology) responding.

In his paper, Talal Asad argued that

The conflict that many Euro-Americans saw in the Danish cartoons scandal was between the West and Islam, each championing opposing values: democracy, secularism, liberty, and reason on the one side, and on the other the many opposites – tyranny, religion, authority, and unreason (Asad 3).

Referring to secular critique itself as a kind of violence, Asad, while claiming to stake out a position beyond the normative, blasted "Western secularists" who can conceive of blasphemy only as "a constraint on the freedom of speech guaranteed by Western principles and by the pursuit of reason so central to Western culture."

Asad wants us to see blasphemy "not simply as a bid for free speech against irrational taboos but as violence done to human relations that are invested with great value" (Asad 16). I may be wrong, but my intuition is that while such an argument finds an audience in the Western academy when the violent protesters are Muslims upset about an insult to Muhammad, it seems to lose a lot of its force when those rioting against blasphemy are ultra-Orthodox Jews upset about the "desecration" of Jerusalem by homosexuals.

Bambies in Jerusalem

The sign reads "Welcome to the Valley of the Gazelles,

a municipal and communal nature site" (Photo: Wikipedia)

Wildlife is not the first thing that pops into my mind when I hear Jerusalem. In fact, Zafrir Rinat writes in Ha'aretz, the Holy City is home to an

abundance of wild animals, which find an assorted variety of niches in Jerusalem, [and] bring nature into the city.

Most astonishing to me was learning about the "Valley of the Gazelles" (עמק הצבאים), a 205 dunam park in the middle of Jerusalem, home to a family of 20 plus gazelles.

Photo by Jeff Finger, who has more pictures and information
(in English) about this wonderful park

Preserving this park has not been easy, as it is prime land for development. Between 2000 and 2004, environmental and social activists cooperated to thwart plans to turn the park over to commercial developers ("עמק הבצבאים," Wikipedia). This struggle united members of the Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow (הקשת הדמוקרטית המזרחית) and the Nature Protection Society (החברה להגנת הטבע), among others.

In Jerusalem, Rinat reports, environmental activists have also been joined by yeshiva students and citizens from the ultra-Orthodox communities. The writer notes, however, that "one element is noticeably absent from the environmental activities in Jerusalem" - the representation of Arab residents from Jerusalem's eastern part. "Such cooperation," Rinat argues,

is a must and can be arranged even if there is no agreement on the future borders of the city and its political fate. It is essential primarily for residents East Jerusalem residents, who are more exposed to environmental blights and to neglect. As in other cases in Israel, eastern Jerusalem's Arabs have remained invisible in the environmental campaign to preserve the city's image and shape its quality of life.

Thanks to Ima for the reference and title.

UNESCO Ambiguates on Old City Dig

UNESCO's HQ in Paris

The report of UNESCO's investigation of Israeli excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem was published Wednesday. I can't find the full text on UNESCO's website. Only a press release. In any case, the gist of the matter seems clear. First of all, the report clears the Israelis of the accusation that their work is in any way deleterious to the Muslim holy site. But second, it criticizes the Israeli's for not communicating with the Waqf, the Jordanians, etc., in advance of the project. it would be interesting to see the full text of the report in order to gauge the relative emphasis placed on these two points.

I was somewhat dismayed to read a BBC story in which the now officially discredited accusations of some Muslim leaders were presented as banal -- as potentially truthful. As the BBC puts it,"Palestinian critics and Muslim figures internationally say the work could damage the mosque foundations." Thanks to the report summarized in this very BBC story, we now know this not to be the case.

The other issue, namely, Israel's prerogative in undertaking activities of this nature in land occupied in 1967, is much more complicated. According to Haaretz, Israeli diplomats fear that coordination with the Waqf and Jordanians would be tantamount to renouncing Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount. For my part, I don't understand why the excavations should be stopped immediately if they are deemed harmless. UNESCO says that the Israelis have seen enough, but that is almost never the case in archaeology. Still, I can imagine that, perhaps, in hindsight, a more multilateral approach might have been taken to this sensitive problem.

One Last Pass Through the Dung Gate

For the past few days, the authors of this blog have been involved in a low-intensity dispute over one of the Old City of Jerusalem's many gates. In yesterday’s post, N asserted that the “Dung Gate” (שער האשפות) should be distinguished from the the Mughrabi ("Moors'") Gate (שער המוגרבים). As N pointed out, the “Dung Gate” – a name which originally appears in the Bible – is the southern entrance to the Old City and the Western Wall plaza. For those familiar with the area, it’s the gate that is usually used by buses and vehicles to enter and leave the area. Here's a good photograph taken from a Russian-language site for anyone wishing to refresh their memory:

The "Dung Gate"

What has so far eluded me and others involved in this blog is the distinction between the “Dung Gate” and the “Mughrabi Gate”. I am accustomed to hearing both names used interchangeably for the above gate. An Arab friend of mine who works as a lawyer in Jerusalem always referred to the “Dung Gate” as the “Mughrabi Gate”. Numerous websites, including the Wikipedia entry cited above, indicate that both names are used for the gate. The origin of the name שער האשפות (“Dung Gate”) is biblical. The Arabs of the area, however, refer to it as Bab al-Magharbe (Gate of the Maghrebins). An old map that my father retrieved for me from his Jerusalem-related mini-library attests to the fact that the “Dung Gate” was in fact referred to as the Mughrabi Gate:


The above map was scanned from a book originally published 1876 by the German travel writer Karl Baedeker. The original appears to have been published in English, rather than German, in London, under the name Jerusalem and its Surroundings. In the bottom left of the above map, the "Dung Gate" is labeled "Bab al-Mogharibe". The term "Dung Gate" is also included in brackets with the prefix "vulgar".

What is missing from Baedeker map is a label indicating the location of the other Mughrabi Gate, the entrance to the Temple Mount, that N mentioned. This gate is very clearly designated in an Israeli map first drawn in 1936 by P.G. Salmon and updated and printed in 1970 by the Israeli Land Survey Department in 1970:



Those who know Hebrew will note that the "Dung Gate" is identified as such in the bottom left of the above map. Only the Hebrew term שער האשפות is used. If we trace the curved earthworks or ramp that leads from this gate upwards, we reach the entrance to the Temple Mount, which the map identifies as the שער המערביים, which essentially means "Gate of the Maghrebis" [Westerners, i.e. those coming from the West - the Maghreb]. [An interesting linguistic aside that I cannot help but insert here is that the Arabic letter غ, transcribed into English as gh and properly pronounced like a Parisian "R", is transformed into an ע (ayn) in Hebrew. Thus al-Maghrib - المغرب ("the West" in Arabic) is ha-Ma'arav - המערב in Hebrew.]

The fuss that is currently being made is, of course, about the ramp that connects the "Dung Gate" (or Mughrabi Gate or whatever) to the other Mughrabi Gate that leads up to the Temple Mount. The wooden ramp that has been in use for this purpose in the past, has now been torn up and the mound on which it rests is being leveled. Currently, excavations are underway to locate any artifacts before a new walkway is constructed. Here are several pictures taken by Amos last summer of the old wooden ramp that is now being torn down:

This shows the ramp pretty clearly; Kotel to the left, al-Aqsa to the right

Here you can see just a small part of the ramp but maybe also the gate that leads directly to the mount

Another view of the ramp

What we need now is another post summarizing the history of both gates - when they were built, when they were re-opened and when they were modified.

Monitoring the Jerusalem Excavations

The course of politically sensitive excavations in the City of David.

I think that I have finally arrived at a clear picture of the politico-archaeological situation in Jerusalem. Who could riot if everyone were forced to pick this story apart on a Friday night? We must distinguish between two archaeological projects currently active in Jerusalem.

The first is the construction of a bridge that links the Dung Gate (שער האשפות), off the south side of the Western Wall plaza, to the Mughrabi ("Moors'") Gate (שער מוגרבים), which leads to the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount). There was some confusion in the press, and indeed on this blog, about the topography. The Dung Gate is not the Mughrabi Gate. Regarding this first project, I wholeheartedly agree with John: this is 100% kosher. As Haaretz put it in an editorial, this project is in line with the post-1967 status quo. The Israelis control the Mughrabi Gate, the only point of Jewish access to the Temple Mount holy site, just as they control, of course, the Western Wall plaza. This bridge connects those two points and simply replaces a condemned ramp. The excavations that accompany the construction of the bridge are salvage excavations, which as Gideon Avni of the Israel Antiquities Authority nicely explains, are "no different than any other salvage excavation conducted by the Antiquities Authority throughout the country." A perhaps more eloquent testament to the innocence of these excavations than the Authority's live web cam are the comments of Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, from the French Ecole Biblique in East Jerusalem. He told the BBC that the work was "completely routine."

"This work is not inside the Haram. It is outside, leading to the Moors' Gate. The earth ramp fell down and has to be replaced. I do not know why the Palestinians have chosen to make an issue out of this. It is a recognised Jewish area under the arrangements that prevail in the Old City. One can contrast this to the extensive excavations just round the corner in a Muslim area where huge pilgrim hostels from the 8th Century were revealed, with no protest. There has also been no protest over digs at the City of David nearby. There is absolutely no danger to the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque since that is built on the huge Herodian blocks that are still there."

Interestingly, Murphy-O'Connor brings up a second excavation, one which he claims has not elicited a particularly ferocious reaction, that which is underway in the "City of David," south of the Western Wall plaza and Temple Mount, to the east of the Green Line. The distinction between this excavation, which Haaretz termed "illegal," and the Mughrabi bridge project was pointed out in an earlier post by Amos. To my mind, this City of David excavation is, by contrast, morally, ideologically, and perhaps politically dubious. I hasten to add that what it has uncovered so far, part of a Second Temple era road that likely connected the ritual bathing pools of Silwan to the Temple Mount promises archaeologist a significant advance in our knowledge of the ancient city under Roman authority. Still, the project seems deeply flawed. It began under the direction of Professors Gabi Reich and Eli Shukrun a few months ago near the Arab village of Silwan. The same Antiquities Authority's Gideon Avni has called it "unlicensed." Yet the AIA has sanctioned an "exploratory" continuation phase rather than impose the customary restrictions on excavators who break the rules. From Haaretz, it seems, one can't get a clear idea of just "how" illegal this excavation is. To me, it doesn't seem kosher, though. First of all, the excavators are reported to be digging under the local Arabs' homes without any coordination with the owners of those homes. I can't imagine how this can be ethically justified. Second of all, one only needs to glance at the sources of funding for this project to see that the political guidance - or lack thereof - that looms behind the Mughrabi work simply isn't there in this case. One source is an organization called Elad [which promotes the acquisition of East Jerusalem properties by Jews - Amos], and another is the "City of David Foundation" [they seem to be the same organization - Amos]. Its founder, David Be'eri

"first visited the City of David in the mid-1980s, the city was in such a state of disrepair and neglect that the former excavations that had once been conducted were once again concealed beneath garbage and waste. The site was almost completely off-limits to tourists for security reasons, and in fact the first visit David'le made to the site was as an undercover commander of an elite military unit. Inspired by the historical record of archaeological discoveries made in the City of David in prior years, and by the longing of the Jewish People to return to Zion, David'le left the army to establish the Ir David Foundation in 1986 ('Ir David Foundation).

For those inciting Muslims in Israel, the territories, and the world to riot, the Mughrabi Gate work clearly provided enough of a pretext. It would be wise not to add more fuel to the fire with excavations such as this second one, which are not only illegal under Israeli law but also being promoted by organizations with explicit political agendas.

More facts on the Excavations near the Temple Mount

The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa (July 2006)

The Israel Antiquities Authority now has a live web camera on its website which broadcasts views of the excavation site from different angles. The webcam is actually not terribly enlightening for viewers not familiar with the area, but it is useful as a symbolic demonstration of openness and transparency. Unfortunately, the site seems to designed only for Internet Explorer. There are also two articles by senior archaeologists from the Antiquities Authority. One article, by Dr. Gideon Avni, seeks to explain why the excavations are being carried out now. He argues quite convincingly that the excavations are part of a salvage operation aimed at locating, documenting and preserving any artifacts at the site where the planned bridge is supposed to be constructed. Another source worth looking at is a Question and Answer session hosted by the Jerusalem Post with Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University.

Inciting the Faithful: Construction near the Temple Mount

Al Aqsa from behind the wall (Summer 2006)

ADDENDUM: I wrote the post below before the riots that erupted on the Temple Mount on Friday. Protesters in Nazareth, meanwhile, carried signs calling on the Muslim world to react to the "Jewish assault on [al-Aqsa]."

There has been a great deal of commotion about Israeli construction and excavation projects near the Temple Mount in recent days. Accusations by the waqf and by various Palestinian groups that Israel is damaging the al-Aqsa mosque in particular or the Haram al-Sharif more generally are longstanding. In several instances in the past, Muslim leaders have complained about the "desecration" of these areas by the State of Israel or by Jews. All too often, these accusations have been utterly spurious, serving to incite Arabs in Israel and abroad.

This time around, there is controversy about two different projects. The first is the excavation of a tunnel under the City of David by two Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists. Archaeologists recently discovered what they believe to be a road used by pilgrims during the Second Temple era that led through Jerusalem and to the temple. They are planning to lay bare the whole road, from the village of Silwan to the Bab al-Mughrabi [Mughrabi Gate or Gate of the North Africans, also known as the "Dung Gate"] and perhaps even to the Temple Mount. It turns out that the excavations that have been going on recently are actually illegal under Israeli law, as it is proceeding without a license (Ha'aretz).

A different project is the construction of a new bridge to replace the old ramp to the Bab al-Mughrabi, which collapsed. It is important to point out that this gate, which in Hebrew is called the שער האשפות (Garbage or Dung Gate) is also the only one by which Jews and other non-Muslims can currently access the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, whichever you prefer. All the other gates are open to Muslims only. It was to be expected that the inflammatory leader of the Islamist Movement's Northern Branch in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, would protest any construction by Israel. But now even the Egyptian Foreign Ministry is weighing in. In a statement to the Israeli ambassador, the Egyptians declared that

the sacredness of the site makes any movement inside or around it a very sensitive issue for Arab and Muslim peoples, in a way that could cause the situation to explode (Ha'aretz).

Never mind that it is also Judaism's holiest site.

Interestingly enough, the waqf itself has not yet launched protests against this construction, which is taking place entirely outside the Temple Mount. The Islamist Movement seems to have taken the opportunity to incite its followers once again. This is in line with previous statements by the Sheikh to the effect that Israel was preparing to seize the al-Aqsa mosque.

Of Two Different Minds

A group of soldiers protecting worshippers
at the Western Wall in Jerusalem (July 2006)

Be lenient with me as I return to a subject about which I have frequently griped in the past: "the Europeans." Today, I ran into an acquaintance of mine from a very small country in Western Europe, and asked her how she had passed the last few days. She mentioned that she had had a wonderful time at the beach in Tel Aviv. The only thing that had disturbed her, were the sounds of military helicopters moving across the sky. "Everything was so peaceful, and then this ...." she said with obvious resentment. The statement reminded me of the distaste some European visitors expressed to me about the police presence in some American cities, as well as the abundance of security personnel with guns on Israel's streets. I find it very difficult to understand this mindset. The helicopters are making it possible for me to sit safely on the beach. The security guards are there to prevent us from being blown up. Yes, I am resentful - but not at the people who are protecting me.

In conversations with Europeans, and while living on the Continent, I have often noticed a certain uneasiness with police and soldiers, even if they are representatives of democratic states pledged to safeguard the rights of their fellow-citizens. Some French and German acquaintances of mine, almost seemed to prefer the risk of being the target of violent crime to an increased police presence or more agressive patrolling.