January 13, 2005

Speak out against the Desecration!

From the Jerusalem Post

Police allow illegal Muslim burial near Temple Mount
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

The Arab chairman of a committee which serves as ago-between between Jerusalem police and Arab residents of east Jerusalem is selling burial plots to Muslims just outside the Temple Mount in contravention of the law which classifies the area as state archaeological grounds, a prominent right-wing activist who has taken the state to court said Thursday.

The area in question lies adjacent to the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, where Jordanian engineers are at carrying out repair work on the 2,000-year-old wall, in the direction of the walled-up Golden Gate, where Jewish tradition holds the messiah will enter.
With burial space fast running out at the nearbyancient Muslim cemetery, Arab residents have, over the last year and a half, begun encroaching on the new site to be used for burial.
Arieh King, an activist with the ultra-nationalistElad organization, who last year filed a petition to the High Court of Justice against the burial ofMuslims going on at the site, said Thursday that aworker employed by his organization was recently able to buy three burial plots at the site for NIS 10,000 from the Arab chairman of an east Jerusalem based committee which serves as an intermediary between police and Arab residents of east Jerusalem.

"It turns out that the person who is selling theburial ground is a police appointee, who is supposedly working on behalf of police," King said.

King, who on Thursday asked Israel's Highest Court to issue an immediate interim injunction barring further burials at the site, added that previous municipality demolition orders to stop the burial going on at the archaeological and national park site have been prevented by police.
Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby saidThursday that police have reported all the goings-on at the site to the political echelon.

Me: Write the Knesset, your Senator and Congressman! This desecration has to end. Please pass this on.

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