Build that wall!

Prime Minister Olmert's Kadima government is closing the openings in the security wall after the last Tel Aviv bombing that killed Israeli civilians. The thorny issue is what to do with Jerusalem.

Kadima is talking about letting some outer areas of Jerusalem come under Palestinian control while the holy sites will be specially managed by the Israelis. Naturally there are howls from Palestinians and Orthodox Jewish groups over this idea.

Some Muslims are arguing that the Palestinians should be allowed to administer the Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem. I say the Palestinians should not be allowed any control over any religious site Jerusalem. One just has to look at what they did to Solomon's Stables to understand the perfidy of the Wakf organization that is charged with maintenance on top the Temple Mount.

Under the guise of 'maintenance' they dug a new and larger staircase to ease access to Solomon's Stables. 12,000 tons of archaeologically rich material was carted out by dump truck and dumped outside the Old City. Beautiful pieces of Herodian architecture from Solomon's Stables are probably in that spoil but Wakf will not let anyone investigate the Stables to find out. As for the spoil itself, yes it can be sifted through for artifacts; but without proper documentation for context, it is so much random junk. Now it is a fait accompli and Solomon's Stables has become an underground mosque that can hold 10,000 worshippers.

On the other side of the coin, there are those like the Temple Mount Faithful who want to restore the Jewish Temple on the Holy Mount. They believe that once it is built, then the Messiah will come. For this to happen, an altar must first be built. And the location for the altar would be east of the Dome of the Rock, which means the new Temple would encompass the Dome of the Rock.

I have to agree with Dr. Ritmeyer, Ph. D. in the assertion all this activity by the Muslims is to destroy any evidence of Jewish occupation of the Temple Mount. Even though Jewish occupation predates Islamic occupation by over a thousand years. So to trust those like the Wakf organizations to watch over Christian sites is more than foolish, it would be criminal negligence that would result in the desecration and destruction of Christian sites; all in the name of a crusading form of Islam that hates the Hebrew people.

Will Israeli control of the Temple Mount be better? All we have to go on is Israel's track record since the 1967 war that gave all of Jerusalem and the West Bank to the victorious Israelis. The chief Rabbi of the Israeli army, when the Temple Mount was taken, wanted to destroy the Dome of the Rock but cooler heads prevailed so it stayed intact. And the Wakf organization was entrusted with maintaining the Holy Mount while Israel controlled Jerusalem. Wakf has betrayed the trust that Israel gave it by its actions with Solomon's Stables and other structures on the Temple Mount. Israel has always kept its word, even when it was breaking its vows to Israeli citizens to do work with Wakf.

So I would trust Israeli custody of the holy sites in Jerusalem far more than I could ever trust Palestinian custody.