Al-Ahram Weekly | Region | Culture under attack

		17 - 23 October 2002 Issue No. 608 Region	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Culture under attack
Israel's systematic targeting of Palestinian heritage has had disastrous consequences. Omayma Abdel-Latif spoke to the director of Jerusalem's Islamic Waqf

Palestinian antiquities officials in Jerusalem have urged international organisations concerned with heritage preservation and UNESCO to exert pressure on Israel to lift its ban on restoration activities at the southern wall of Al- Aqsa compound. The southern wall at Al-Aqsa is in grave danger of collapsing. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly on Monday, the director of the Islamic Waqf (Endowments) in Jerusalem, Adnan Husseini, warned that Israeli attempts to impede the restoration process might result in irreparable damage to the wall. There are already signs that the wall has buckled and is in danger of collapse. "If this wall collapses, the Israeli authorities should be held fully responsible for the damage," Husseini told the Weekly, in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. It has also been reported that a 10-metre-wide bulge has been visible on the southern wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Husseini explained that the deterioration of the wall was primarily due to a halt in restoration activities forcibly imposed by Israeli authorities. Last March, the Islamic Waqf was ordered to stop all restoration activities in the southern part of the Al-Aqsa compound, where they have accomplished only 20 per cent of the required work. The southern wall of the mosque lies adjacent to the famous Western wall, commonly known as the Wailing Wall. The rapid deterioration of the wall, according to Husseini, is also a result of continuous archeological digs carried out by Israeli antiquities authorities at the south-western corner of the mosque. These have yielded little evidence of a major Jewish presence, instead, the discoveries have been mostly Muslim artifacts belonging to the Umayyad period. Last month, the Islamic Waqf sought the assistance of the Jordanian Scientific Association, which dispatched a team of experts to assess the damage to the wall. Although Israel agreed to this assistance, Husseini believes that Israel is most likely to ignore its findings.
In an attempt to push the case against the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have accused Palestinian officials of preventing Israeli archeologists from conducting tests to assess damage to the wall. The head of the Israeli antiquities authorities, Shuka Dorfman, warned, in a Jerusalem Post article published last August, that the southern supporting wall of the "temple mount" (Al-Aqsa) was on the verge of collapse. Husseini rejected the accusation saying that the reason why the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem was struggling to keep the Israelis off limits to Al- Aqsa compound was simply because the Israelis wanted to seize any opportunity to set foot in the mosque under the pretext of offering assistance. "If they, the Israelis, were keen on the preservation of the site, as they claim, they should let us carry on with the restoration activities. What they truly want is to have access to the mosque by whatever means. This will give them an excuse to change realities on the ground as they have done with the rest of the city," Husseini added.
The Palestinian concerns over Israel's true intentions to intervene seem valid since Israel's record of honouring agreements to protect cultural heritage under occupation is one of the worst in the world.
Israel has repeatedly come under fire from UNESCO for failing to adopt what one report described as "a scientific and impartial approach to the city's centuries old past". For the past two years Israel did not allow UNESCO's special envoy Professor Oleg Grabbar access to the city, alleging that the political situation was inappropriate. UNESCO officials have appealed to allow international observers into the city but to no avail.
The incident has brought to the forefront the threats facing Palestinian heritage under Israel's occupation. UNESCO sources told the Weekly that there was not much the international body could do to break the deadlock between the Israelis and the Palestinians over this issue. The source lamented the fact that historic monuments of exceptional cultural value for all humanity are being endangered because of the conflict. Last June, in its meeting, the World Heritage Committee redesignated Jerusalem as a major world heritage site in danger.
UNESCO's weak response has come as no surprise to Husseini. "Israel is boycotting UNESCO. It has ignored all previous UNESCO resolutions. They are not allowing anyone to come and check the situation on the ground because they know they will be criticised for the wanton and deliberate destruction they are causing to the Palestinian heritage. This issue is not just about a wall on the verge of collapse, it is about a whole culture that has been systematically targeted for destruction by the occupation authorities. This is just one last attempt," Husseini added.

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