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Jordan Plans to Build 5th Minaret on Temple Mount
(Jerusalem Post) Etgar Lefkovits - Jordanian Wakf officials are planning on building a fifth minaret on the Temple Mount, and Israel has not objected to the proposal, Dr. Raief Najim, the vice president of the Jordanian Construction Committee, said Tuesday. Najim, who is overseeing the renovation of the southern and eastern Temple Mount walls, said the planned minaret was the brainchild of Jordanian King Abdullah II and would be constructed near the eastern wall of the Temple Mount next year. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said the building of the minaret is "within Jordan's religious autonomy" as the traditional overseer of maintenance at the site. "Before any change is made at the ancient Temple Mount it is essential that archeological supervision resume immediately at the site," said Dr. Eilat Mazar, a member of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "In the past, Wakf requests for small structural changes on the Temple Mount were actually an excuse for large-scale Islamization of the site, which caused massive antiquities damage," she added.