On the esplanade of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, a gaping hole, hidden behind opaque palisades.
The excavations that Israel has promptly carried out there, on the last vestiges of the North African quarter razed in 1967, raise concerns and questions from certain experts.
Of this Old City neighborhood destroyed within hours just after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the conquest of East Jerusalem by Israeli forces, archaeologists believed nothing remained.
In January, the discovery, under the blows of backhoe loaders, of alleys and remains of dwellings created a surprise.
But within days, the stones were removed and the area leveled, AFP journalists found.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (AIA) reported a “short session of excavations” before work to “solidify, stabilize and improve the infrastructure” of the esplanade of the Western Wall, the most sacred place where the Jews are allowed to pray and where tens of thousands of people can meet on feast days.
Asked by AFP, the AIA indicated that its excavations had “revealed part of the remains” of the Maghreb district.
A spokeswoman said there had been no “significant discoveries”, which French historian Vincent Lemire, author of a book on the destruction of the Maghreb district by Israel in 1967, disputes.
“No one expected to discover so many remains of the Maghrebi quarter, so well preserved,” he told AFP, citing walls almost a meter high, traces of paint, a cobbled courtyard and a system of ‘rainwater drainage.
Shaved after evacuation of the inhabitants on the night of June 10 to 11, 1967 to make way for the vast esplanade at the foot of the Wailing Wall, the district was founded in 1187 by Saladin, after the capture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders, to accommodate pilgrims Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian Muslims wishing to stay in the city.
Archaeologists have also found toys, tools and kitchen utensils left by the last inhabitants.
“It was very disturbing: for a few hours, we were able to literally walk in the middle of the old Maghreb district, in its streets, in its courtyards, in its houses”, relates Mr. Lemire, director of the French Research Center at Jerusalem.
For Alon Arad, director of the Israeli organization Emek Shaveh, which fights against the politicization of archeology, the “intentions” of the AIA are unclear.
“But given previous archaeological activities, we are very concerned,” he told AFP.
The AIA has been involved in controversial archaeological projects in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area occupied and annexed by Israel.
She notably carried out excavations in tunnels dug under the esplanade of the Wailing Wall and since then transformed into a vast museum presenting ruins dating from the Second Jewish Temple, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.
In 1996, work in these tunnels sparked violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in which more than 80 people died. On the Palestinian side, it was claimed that these galleries threatened the foundations of the esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam built above, on the site of the complex of the ancient Jewish Temple of which the Wailing Wall is a vestige. .
According to Mr. Arad, himself an archaeologist, the priority of the AIA is to create a vast archaeological and tourist site promoting almost exclusively the Jewish history of Jerusalem.
He accuses the Israeli authorities of “ignoring any other heritage” and of “using” archeology to “Judaize” the Old City.
“This assertion has no basis,” replies the AIA, which says it studies “all the antiquities of Jerusalem, all the cultures and all the religions of the Holy City”.
According to her, the remains found are too recent to be archaeological, but she has “documented them and they will be the subject of a publication in a scientific journal”.
Asked about their presentation to the public, the AIA did not answer.
Today, on the current forecourt, nothing mentions the existence for eight centuries of a North African district.
Only a Moroccan flag flutters discreetly in a garden close to the esplanade, where visitors are invited to meditate in front of the Wailing Wall or to browse the underground galleries where they can “touch the authentic stones which tell the history of the nation Jewish”.
Morocco and Israel have been engaged in an accelerated process of rapprochement since the normalization of their diplomatic relations in December 2020.
But “the contrast is striking between [the] power in Israel, which [is] in the negation of the other, and Morocco, which seeks to promote the intangible Judeo-Moroccan heritage, through the creation of a Foundation of Judaism Moroccan, and peaceful inter-religious coexistence,” said Ali Bouabid, general delegate of the Abderrahim Bouabid Foundation, a Moroccan think tank.
“Strange crossover: when one celebrates otherness in noise, it is in silence that the other organizes its disappearance,” he told AFP.
In Jerusalem, Mr. Lemire wonders: “Which buildings of the old Maghrebi quarter will be preserved, shown and valued in the future tourist route? Will some of the objects found in this excavation be exhibited, to bear witness to the ordinary history of this extraordinary neighborhood?”
“If these last vestiges are finally destroyed, he worries, then the material traces of this history will have definitively disappeared.”
02/12/2023 08:02:19 – East Jerusalem (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
