[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2566 Introduced in House (IH)]
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2566
To prohibit assistance from being provided to the Palestinian Authority
or its instrumentalities unless the President certifies that no
excavation of the Temple Mount in Israel is being conducted.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July 19, 2001
Mr. Cantor (for himself, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Ms. Berkley, Mr.
Pitts, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Bachus, Mr. Ryun of Kansas, Mr. Pence, Mr. Souder,
Mr. Crowley, Mr. Lewis of Kentucky, Mr. Weiner, Mr. Schrock, Mr.
Grucci, Mr. Schaffer, Mr. Israel, and Mr. Tiberi) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International
Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To prohibit assistance from being provided to the Palestinian Authority
or its instrumentalities unless the President certifies that no
excavation of the Temple Mount in Israel is being conducted.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Temple Mount Preservation Act of
2001''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The Temple Mount, located in the heart of Jerusalem,
Israel, has great religious significance to the world's three
major monotheistic religions, and increasing violence,
religious intolerance, and archeological neglect threaten to
destroy this sacred site.
(2) According to the Jewish faith, the Temple Mount (Har
ha-Bayit in Hebrew) is the location where Abraham was asked to
sacrifice his only son, Isaac, in the ultimate test of his
commitment to God. The Temple Mount was also the site of the
first and second Holy Temples, and it is a basic tenet of
Judaism that it will be the site of the third Holy Temple.
(3) According to Christianity, Jesus was dedicated on the
Temple Mount in the Second Temple in accordance with the Law of
Moses. He referred to the Biblical Temple as his Father's
House, and was tempted by the Devil at the pinnacle of the
Temple Mount.
(4) According to Islam, the Prophet Mohammad ascended into
Heaven riding al-Burak from the edge of the Temple Mount (Haram
al-Shaif in Arabic). Al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the site of
the Prophet's ascent and is the third holiest site in Islam.
The Dome of the Rock was built over the Holiest Rock,
considered in Muslim traditions as the Center or Core of the
Universe.
(5) In June 1967, Jerusalem once again became a united city
under Israel's sovereignty. Since that time, Israel has been
legally responsible for the Temple Mount and has been
respectful of the religious practices of Jews, Christians, and
Muslims with regard to this site.
(6) The Israeli Government elected to delegate the daily
oversight of the Temple Mount to the Temple Mount Waqf
(Religious Council), in tacit cooperation with the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan, because of the King's capacity as the
Custodian of Haram al-Sharif. In 1994, Jordan's role as
custodian of Muslim religious interests was codified in the
Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty.
(7) In the aftermath of the 1993 Oslo Accords, Yassir
Arafat's Palestinian Authority asserted preeminence on the
Temple Mount through the subversion of the Waqf and by coercing
the Jordan-affiliated officials and clergymen off the Temple
Mount. Arafat personally nominated the virulently anti-Semitic
and anti-American Mufti Ikrima Sabri as the Imam of al-Aqsa
Mosque. In May 1998, Sabri declared that the Jews have no right
to the Temple Mount.
(8) In 1996, the Israeli Islamic Movement sponsored the
expansion of the underground al-Marawani Mosque on the Temple
Mount. The excavation conducted for this expansion extended
beyond the original compound, and an ancient underground
structure dating from the period of the Second Temple (circa
515 B.C. (B.C.E.) to 70 A.D. (C.E.)), known as the Western
Hulda Gate passageway, was converted into a mosque.
(9) In early 1998, the Waqf, controlled by the Palestinian
Authority, began further excavation. A major underground mosque
hall was inaugurated in August 1999 and an emergency exit was
opened to a mosque located on the Temple Mount. The exit is
18,000 square feet in size and up to 36 feet deep, and
thousands of tons of ancient fills from the site were dumped
into the Kidron Valley. Archeologists have subsequently
determined that artifacts dumped into the Kidron Valley from
the Temple Mount dated from the period of the First Temple
(circa 1006 B.C. (B.C.E.) to 586 B.C. (B.C.E.)).
(10) In mid 2000, Arafat deployed onto the Temple Mount
armed and unarmed security personnel of Jibril Rajoub's
Preventive Security Forces in violation of numerous past
agreements with Israel. Rajoub's forces evicted the Waqf's
personnel and consolidated Arafat's control and ability to wage
the Intifadah (``uprising'') against Israel.
(11) In February and March of 2001, an ancient arched
structure built against the Eastern Wall of the Temple Mount
enclosure was razed by bulldozers in order to further enlarge
the emergency gate of the new mosque at the Stables of Solomon.
(12) In early May, Arafat ordered that the underground
halls under the Temple Mount be unified into a single fortified
space that would be both the largest mosque ever built on Haram
al-Sharif and a springboard for the forthcoming Palestinian
struggle for control of the Temple Mount. Given the haste and
unsupervised nature of the ongoing excavation and construction
work, there is great fear that the foundations of the two Holy
Mosques will be severely damaged to the point of collapse.
(13) The actions of Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian
Authority threaten to eliminate all historical evidence of
Jewish activity on the Temple Mount and serve to discredit
Israeli claims of sovereignty over the Temple Mount.
(14) The massive excavation and unsupervised destruction of
artifacts discovered within the Temple Mount are undeniable
affronts to the concepts of religious freedom and tolerance
that must be respected in order to achieve and maintain peace
in the Middle East. The destruction of the Temple Mount, which
threatens to incite more violence, is destroying sacred
artifacts and jeopardizing the ability of Americans to
understand and promote their Judeo-Christian heritage.
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON FUNDS FOR PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY AND ITS
INSTRUMENTALITIES.
(a) Prohibition.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no
funds appropriated or otherwise made available in any Act of Congress
may be used for any form of assistance to the Palestinian Authority or
any instrumentality of the Palestinian Authority, either directly or
through any nongovernmental organization or other entity, unless the
President has certified to the Congress that no excavation of the
Temple Mount in Israel is being conducted, other than that authorized
by the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
(b) Annual Recertification Required.--Any certification by the
President under subsection (a) shall expire on the last day of the
fiscal year in which it is made.
(c) National Security Waiver.--The President may waive the
prohibition contained in subsection (a) for a fiscal year if the
President certifies in writing to the Congress that such waiver is in
the national security interests of the United States.
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