Fallout from Temple Mount Dig
Student Charged with Stealing Antiquities from Dump Site

In contrast to the swift court action it took to prevent damage to a prehistoric site in northern Israel (see IAA Battles Drainage Authority in Court above), the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has done little but wring its hands over damage done to the Temple Mount by the Muslim religious trust known as the Waqf (see "Furor Over Temple Mount Construction," BAR, March/April 2000). At the center of the Jerusalem controversy are the mounds of earth that were carted away from a construction project undertaken by the Waqf in the southeastern quadrant of the Temple Mount. Removed from the Mount in the middle of the night, the earth was unceremoniously dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley, thereby rendering contextless a potential trove of archaeological information.

     Strongly critical of the way the Waqf handled the construction project, the IAA has itself faced criticism for its stance against a group of archaeology students who sifted through the Kidron Valley dump site. The students raised the ire of IAA officials when they took advantage of a conference at Bar-Ilan University to formally present some of their findings from the dump. Accusing the students of "pillaging" an archaeological site, IAA agents raided the apartment of group leader Zachi Zweig, then had police arrest the third-year archaeology student on a charge of stealing antiquities. Zweig was released by the police after questioning. But news of his ordeal has raised more than a few hackles. Noting the IAA's inability to take official action against the Waqf, some observers have decried the incongruity of the authority's swift and forceful response to Zweig, who continues to insist that political motivations have caused the IAA to miss "the opportunity of a lifetime to get archaeological information from the Temple Mount."