Temple Mount

Let's do a little test. I will post Olmert's current approach on dealing with the Temple Mount, followed by Kahane's, and you pick the viewpoint you like better.

Olmert's position regarding the Temple Mount:

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has quietly granted the Waqf – the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount – permission to dig unsupervised on the sacred site, WND has learned.

The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs.

The last time the Waqf conducted an unsupervised excavation on the Temple Mount, in 1997, the Muslim custodians ultimately were caught by Israeli authorities disposing truckloads of Mount dirt that contained Jewish Temple artifacts.

Most Palestinian leaders routinely deny well-documented Jewish ties to the Temple Mount – the holiest site in Judaism.

Speaking to WND in a recent interview, Waqf official and chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi claimed the Jewish Temples "never existed."

"About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the Haram Al- Sharif (Temple Mount)," said Tamimi, who is considered the second most important Palestinian cleric after Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

"Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi.

Kahane's take:

THE DISGRACE OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT where Moslem mosques are built on the holiest site in Judaism. A synagogue built on Islam's holiest site in Mecca would lead to world Moslem outcry. Jewish silence in the face of the desecration of Judaism's holiest site is inexcusable and a disgrace. The Moslems and their mosques must be removed from the site of the holy temples of Israel.

I know which approach I'd choose. How about you?

-MZ