Jerusalem (special) -- As Tisha B'Av approaches this Sunday, debate over the history of the Temple Mount is leading to calls for militancy by the religious settler movement and to political action by some U.S. Congressmen.

Tisha B'Av commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in=
Jerusalem as well as other tragedies in Jewish history, including the expulsion from Spain in 1492.  What makes this year's commemoration different from others is that there has been in the Arab press a growing Temple denial=20=
movement--similar to the Holocaust denial movement. =20

Some Palestinians are arguing, in essence, that there never was a first or second Jewish temple on the mount, and that therefore Jews have no legitimate interest in the area which today is the site of two important Islamic shrines: The Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Some in the Arab propaganda effort even go so far as to say that the Kotel, or Western Wall--the holiest shrine in Jerusalem--has no connection to the Jewish people.

In response, the Rabbinical Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza on Wednesday,=
July 18, called upon Jews to make a Tisha B'Av march to the Temple Mount which is under the control of the Islamic Waqf, to assert the area's historic and religious importance to Jews.

This is a departure from Orthodox custom of not visiting the Temple Mount lest Jews, by accident, tread over the area where the "Holy of Holies" of
the original two temples were located--areas that in ancient times were forbidden by Jewish law to anyone except the High Priest. 

However, the Rabbinical Council of Judea, Samaria and Gaza said it would prepare a map of the Mount to indicate areas which must be avoided to comply with the halakha, or religious law.

Jewish concern over the future of the Temple Mount has been exacerbated not=only by the Temple denial movement, but also by some mysterious digging and construction work occurring there under the authority of the Islamic Waqf.

Confirmation that a large power saw was being used to cut through rocks on the Temple Mount was provided a Knesset committee last week by Niso Shaham, Israel' s police commander for the Old City. =20

Previously photographs taken from a helicopter by the Committee for the Prevention and the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount had showed the saw as well as sawed off stones.  Arabic language newspapers meanwhile have referred to projects on the Temple Mount, including the cleaning of cisterns, which have attracted hundreds of volunteers.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., earlier this month sent letters to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calling for an investigation into large sca=
le bulldozing and destruction of ancient archeological site on the Temple Mo=
unt in Jerusalem by the Waqf.

He said police reports and photographs confirm the Waqf permitted construction crews to indiscriminately use jack hammers, tractors, stone cutters and other heavy machinery in digging a massive hole more than 50 meters long,
25 meters wide and 12 meters deep in the area commonly known as "Solomon's Stables."

The Los Angeles Democrat noted that no archaeologists were allowed to oversee the excavation and the Israeli Antiquities Authority has been denied access to inspect the site since October 2000.

Waxman said a reason for suspicion is that "There is already an escalating trend of Arab leaders endorsing Holocaust denial.  The Waqf appears to be participating in a calculated assault on Jewish heritage, Jewish history and
Jewish culture that will only get worse if we ignore it.

Both Waxman and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., likened the digging on the Temple M=
ount to the recent action by the Taliban in Afghanistan destroying Buddhist
heritage sites.  Waxman said the U.S. and the U.N. should as vigorously protest destruction of Jewish sites as it does the Buddhist sites.

Cantor on Thursday, July 19, introduced legislation calling for a cessation
of American aid to the Palestinian Authority until unauthorized excavations from the Temple Mount come to an end.

The congressman said the measure is intended to ensure that important sites in the Holy Land "remain open and remain preserved in good condition with
equal access for all people."

Joined at a news conference by Congressmen Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Mike
Pence (R-Ind.), Cantor said any action affecting the Temple Mount concerns not only fellow Jews but also Christians because it was "visited by Jesus as a child and again as an adult."

After Israel gained control of the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-
Day-War, it made an agreement with Islamic authorities of Jordan permitti=
ng them supervisory control of the area around the Dome of the Rock and the
Al Aqsa Mosque.   But that control was later transferred from Jordan's religious authorities to those of the Palestinian Authority.

In the aftermath of the negotiations surrounding the Oslo Accords, Chairman Yasser Arafat "took control of the Waqf, bringing about a change in the policy of free access for all religions on the Temple Mount," Cantor told a
news conference. 

Arafat replaced Jordanian-affiliated clergymen and officials and named Mufti Ikirima Sabri as the chief Muslim administrator, Cantor said. "Sabri, known for his anti-Semitic and anti-American views, has since declared that the Jews have no right to the Temple Mount.

"More recently, Arafat has denied Jewish and Christian worshipers access to the historic Temple Mount and has restricted media from visiting the site,"
the Republican congressman continued.

"Beginning in early 1998, Arafat's Waqf has permitted the large-scale bulldozing and destruction of the Temple Mount antiquities. Thousands of tons
of fill have been unearthed and simply dumped into the nearby Kidron Valley. Archaeologists have verified these artifacts date from the period of the First Temple (circa 1006 BCE to 586 BCE)."

UCSD Professor David Noel Freedman, one of the world's foremost experts on=
the biblical period of history, dismisses the Arab contention that there was no historic Jewish presence on the Temple Mount.

"I don't think any serious person has ever questioned that is the area where the Temple stood," Freedman told HERITAGE in a telephone interview last week.  "There is a continuous history, and excavations have never shown anything to disprove that.  The modern debate is purely political.  It has nothing to do with serious scholarship."

Freedman, who is the editor-in-chief of the Anchor Bible Project as well as
a professor of Hebrew biblical studies, said his own study of the Dome of the Rock indicated that "when the Muslims took over Jerusalem in the late 7th century, they deliberately built the Dome of the Rock right on the space where the Temple had been.

"They understood it was sacred space," Freedman said. 

Freedman said when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, the city's predominant= population was Christian.  "Jews weren't involved, weren't consulted.
The Christians were," he said.  "An agreement was made that the Christians would keep the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  The Muslims picked this site, which was higher, to show that their religion was better.  But they left alone all the Christian buildings."

Freedman said the Dome of the Rock was the fourth major religious edifice built on the Temple Mount.  After the First and Second Temples were destroyed the Roman emperor Hadrian apparently built a temple there to the Roman god 
Jupiter and several goddesses, he said.  The structure was destroyed before
the Muslims arrived.

He said the Dome of the Rock is "a very distinctive kind of monument; it is not a mosque.  The Dome of the Rock is a memorial to a great ancestral her=
o--a memorial to Abraham," the common ancestor of both Muslims and Jews.

"The connection with Abraham is quite deliberate," said Freedman. "Most things you find in the Koran derive from Hebrew scriptures." He said because the prophet Mohammed was illiterate, "his understanding of Hebrew Scriptures was based upon stories told to him by Jews and Christians.  In the K=
oran, "the story is a little mixed up, but it is basically derived from the Bible."

Jewish tradition holds that King Solomon built the First Temple on Mount Moriah, the place where Abraham was prevented by God from carrying out His previous command to sacrifice Isaac.