Israelis and Palestinians have known about decay at the wall for at least a year. But while the bulge is an engineering problem, repairing it is a political one. The two sides are bickering over not only who has the authority to fix the damage but also what caused it and how serious it is. Then there’s a broader dispute. The mosque compound is believed to be the site of the first and second Jewish Temples destroyed in antiquity. Some Israelis, like Barkay, complain that Muslim religious authorities have been given too much autonomy to run a shrine that is sacred to both sides (Jews call it the Temple Mount). Muslims counter that Israel is quietly encroaching on Al Aqsa. “When you have competing claims to a holy site, as these two sides do,” says Gershom Gorenberg, who wrote a book about the site, “it becomes very difficult to do even simple, mundane things.”
Like erecting scaffolding. Adnan Husseini, who directs the Muslim religious trust known as the Waqf, says his engineers have always been in charge of maintenance of the Old City’s peripheral wall, and have repaired similar problems before. The base of the south wall has layers of Herodian stone that were constructed 2,000 years ago. But the upper part, where the bulge has appeared, has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries, most recently by the Ottomans. The Waqf began repairs in April but was stopped by Israeli authorities, who wanted to oversee the project. Husseini believes Israelis are deliberately exaggerating the severity of the problem to justify their intervention. “Their real agenda is to take over the place,” he says.
Husseini blames natural erosion for swelling in the ancient mortar. But some Israeli authorities believe the damaged area, several yards in diameter, is linked to Palestinian construction. In the late 1990s, the Palestinians put a new floor in a large chamber under the compound that Jews call Solomon’s Stables and Muslims refer to as the Marwani Mosque, and bulldozed a new entrance. A report drafted by Israel’s Antiquities Authority last year cited the refurbishing as one possible cause of cracks in the stone, and said rainwater might be seeping through the mosque and into the southern wall.
Barkay and other Israeli archeologists say the Waqf’s construction is also destroying ancient relics, some from the Jewish Temple period. “This is one of the most serious archeological crimes ever committed in this country,” Barkay says. Other Israelis disagree. Meir Ben-Dov, who excavated for decades alongside the southern wall, says Palestinian construction has had little effect on archeology at the site. He also relates instances when Israelis have tried to destroy or cover up Muslim remnants.
Ben-Dov worries that pieces of stone might fall away from the wall into a courtyard, but he doubts the wall will collapse. Other Israelis have been encouraging dialogue between the two sides. Last month Israeli and Palestinian authorities finally agreed to let a third party–a Jordanian team of engineers–inspect the wall and take samples back to Amman. A member of that team, Raef Nijem, told NEWSWEEK that the repair work could be done quickly. “The solution is very simple,” he said by phone from Amman, but the two sides have to cooperate. Nothing simple about that.
