JERUSALEM, Dec 7 (AFP) - Jewish extremists chanting anti-Arab slogans staged a protest in the Old City of Jerusalem Tuesday against controversial building work by Muslim religious authorities at Islam's third-holiest site.
Members of the fringe Temple Mount Faithful, comprised of elderly fanatic Zionists originally from the United States, declared they were willing to lay down their lives to stop the work at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and to reclaim the site for Judaism.
"We come to say that the Arab occupation and the Arab abomination on the hill of God, the Jewish Temple Mount, should immediately be removed from this place," declared the movement's leader, Gershon Salomon, during the publicity stunt.
"We shall do everything. We shall even sacrifice our lives," Salomon said before leading his group of 30 followers to the mosque esplanade, where they were turned back by police.
The protest coincided with a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben Ami and his minister responsible for Jerusalem, Haim Ramon, to decide what action to take over the work on a new entrance to a site under Al-Aqsa by the Waqf, the Muslim religious authority.
The mosque compound holding Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock was visited by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Jews say it is the site of their Second Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.
The Jewish extremists also demonstrated outside Orient House, the unofficial Palestinian headquarters in east Jerusalem, where they set fire to a Palestinian flag and stamped on a black cardboard coffin with the word "Palestine" emblazoned on one side.
"Death to Arafat" and "Faisal Out," they chanted, referring to the Palestinian leader and Faisal al-Husseini, the top Palestinian official for Jerusalem affairs, whose office is in Orient House.
Sheikh Adnan Husseini, head of the Waqf in Jerusalem, said that despite the controversy, work was continuing on a new entrance into the site, known as the Marwani Mosque by Muslims and as Solomon's Stables by Jews. The Marwani Mosque was renovated and opened a few years ago.
"It is only a matter of opening an emergency door into the Marwani mosque," Husseini said. "For various reasons there's always an uproar whenever there is work. There are political reasons for creating this uproar," he added.
