Mideast situation/Palestine – Demolition of Al-Aqsa mosque – Letter from Jordan

Letter dated 1 March 1983 from the Permanent Representative of Jordan

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to transmit to you a text relating to an article published by the Israeli newspaper Davar on 20 January 1983 on the activities of the "Temple Mount Fund" organization, which is seeking the demolition of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, on the pretext of work on the restoration of the Third Temple.

The basic objective of these activities is an endeavour to destroy the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to put an end to the religious and spiritual relationship linking millions of Muslims to the Holy City, to consecrate it as a Jewish city and to cover up the action undertaken by the Israeli authorities for the annexation of Arab Jerusalem immediately following its occupation in 1967.

I would be grateful if you would publish and circulate this information as an official document of the General Assembly, under item 69 of the preliminary list of the thirty-eighth regular session, and of the Security Council.

Accept, Sir, the assurances of my highest consideration.

(Signed) Abdullah SALAH

Permanent Representative

His Excellency

Mr. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Secretary-General of the United Nations

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* A/38/50.

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ANNEX

Letter dated 31 January 1983 from the Minister of Occupied

Territories Affairs of Jordan addressed to the Minister of

Awkaf and Islamic Religious Affairs

The Israeli newspaper Davar of 20 January 1983 reported that an extremist organization established recently in Israel and the United States, bearing the name "Temple Mount Fund", having headquarters in Jerusalem and receiving financing and financial support from extremist Christian and Jewish circles in California has set as its principal goal the demolition of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the establishment of the so-called "Third Temple" on its ruins.

This organization is headed in the United States by a rich businessman from California, a Christian called Terry Reisenhuber, and in Israel by a certain Stanley Goldfett, a man in his forties and an active member of the Jewish extremist organization Lehi. It was he who set the great time bomb which exploded in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Another leader of this extremist organization is a man called Tsvi Slonim, one of the leaders of Gush Emunim.

The Temple Mount Fund is working in the same direction as two Knesset members from the rightist Hatechia party, Geula Cohen and Hanan Porath. The man known as Stanley Goldfett admitted to the Davar correspondent that he was the head of this extremist organization in Israel, but he refused to talk about its true objectives and merely said that the matter was extremely important. Terry Reisenhuber told the Davar correspondent that everything that this organization was going to do was mentioned in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, "Jewish scriptures".  He added that the attempt to rebuild the Third Temple had been decided upon 12 years earlier and that he had not received any support or encouragement until, a year ago, he had found himself working in Israel with persons who were also seeking the restoration of Temple Mount to Jewish sovereignty.

Reisenhuber added that the organization was currently endeavouring to purchase land in the West Bank and in Arab Jerusalem. He said:

"We have succeeded in gaining possession of some Arab property in Jerusalem and have established the headquarters of this organization there. We are now trying to gain possession of an Arab house in the Road of the Valley near Temple Mount. From there we shall begin excavations under the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in order to arrive at the site of the Temple. me Higher Islamic Council in Jerusalem has so far frustrated our plan to gain possession of the Arab house near Temple Mount, but we shall get it in the end."

The Temple Mount Fund organization intends to freeze the sum of $100 million to finance its activities during the current year. Reisenhuber said:

"Next month we shall carry out excavations under the Sublime Abrahamic Precinct in Hebron, in order to arrive, with the help of special electronic

equipment, at the graves of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac."

(Signed) Hasan IBRAHIM

Minister of Occupied Territories Affairs

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