Word: tunnelling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...This tunnel, which is in fact part of an archaeological excavation, does not impinge on any Islamic holy places. It does not threaten any mosques. The only religious site it does touch is Judaism's holiest shrine, the Western Wall. The excavation had been open for eight years. It needed another gate to allow more visitors...
...days at the beginning of the crisis, the American press echoed the falsehood. The Wall Street Journal, front page, reported Palestinian violence sparked by a "tunnel on Jerusalem's Temple Mount." It isn't. ABC News' Peter Jennings parroted the charge: "Muslims say the tunnel cuts under their compound and call it a crime against Islam." It doesn't and it isn't. The Washington Post explained that "it should come as no surprise that violent passions were aroused by Israel's tampering with the ground beneath the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque." No ground beneath either...
What happened? The Western media were simply taken in by a lie--an easily provable lie--put out by the P.L.O. and the Arab League. At Arafat's urging, the League issued within 48 hours of the tunnel's opening a declaration calling the tunnel "part of an Israeli Zionist plot to destroy the Aqsa mosque [and] set up the Temple of Solomon...
...Arab claim about the tunnel was, in fact, a big lie: modern propaganda with medieval resonance. In medieval times, massacres against Jews were often carried out as vengeance for some alleged Jewish desecration of Christianity. How would NPR have covered the blood-libel-inspired massacre of the Jews of Munich in 1286? "Leaders of the massacre claim that the Jews had killed Christian boys and used their blood for religious rituals"? For balance, I suppose, NPR would have added, "The Jews deny this...
...during the "tunnel" riots of two weeks ago, there were incidents of murder and sacrilege. One occurred in Nablus, an Arab town under P.L.O. control. There is in Nablus a Jewish religious site, Joseph's Tomb. Under the P.L.O.-Israeli peace accords, it remained a tiny enclave peopled by devout Jews and, for protection, a few Israeli soldiers. On Sept. 26, it was attacked by a Palestinian mob throwing firebombs. Six Israelis were killed. Many prayer books were burned...