Facts in the ground

No sooner have we been regaled with Nadia el-Haj's unique view of Palestinian Jewish History, than reality checks into the melee to match her bizarre theories. We are told that "Possible Remains of Second Temple Found Below Al Aqsa Mosque":

Remains of the Jewish second temple may have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem, Israeli television reported Thursday.
Israeli television broadcast footage of a mechanical digger at the site which Israeli archaeologists visited on Thursday.

Gaby Barkai, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University, urged the Israeli government to stop the pipework after the discovery of what he said is "a massive seven metre-long wall."
Television said the pipework carried out by the office of Muslim religious affairs, or Waqf, is about 1.5 metres deep and about 100 metres long.
The compound, which houses both Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is located in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and then annexed. It is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina.

For Jews it as known as the Temple Mount, which they revere as the site of the King Herod's second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. It is the holiest site in Judaism.
All that remains today is the temple's Western Wall, or Wailing wall.

Solominia provides a video of the works being carried out by the muslim WAQF, with total disregard to to the irreplaceable archeological damage done to the site.

..."The archaeological damage is many times worse," Mazar said, "in light of the fact that the ground level is only slightly above the original Temple Mount platform. And in fact, the bedrock has been uncovered in some places - meaning that earth that has been in place for many centuries, even possibly since the First Temple, has been removed."

"No other country in the world would allow such grave damage to its most precious archaeological treasures," Mazar said.

Remember this event?

"Originally, tourists in the tunnel had to trace back their steps to the entrance. A connection to the Hasmonean water system was made, but this still required tourists to eventually U-turn once they had reached the Struthion pool.

On the 24 September, 1996, the then Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, ordered that a new exit be cut through from the Struthion Pool area to the Via Dolorosa nearby. Yasser Arafat commented on the event, alleging the real aim was to make the Haram al-Sharif collapse: subsequently, riots erupted. Israel managed to stop the riots, but 70 Palestinians and 16 IDF soldiers were killed during the event."

Has anyone ever wondered why Muslims chose that very site on which to erect their "third holiest Mosque"?

Before Jerusalem came under the control of Muslims in 638, it was widely understood that al-Aqsa mosque is the same as David's sanctuary. When Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattāb (580-644) was given the key to the city by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, he signed with him a treaty that is known as the "Covenant of Omar" and he later asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to show him what Umar spelled out as "Masjid Dawood" (Mosque of David). This was called David's sanctuary or prayer niche (mihrab Dawud), in the Qur'an (38:21). David chose the site on which Solomon built his temple. It was an abandoned place and abused by the Romans and the Church at the time. The Patriarch took him to the door of the sanctuary which was almost blocked due to the trash that was placed at the door. Umar looked left and right and said: “Allah is Great, I swear by the one who holds my soul in his hand that this is the Mosque of David which the prophet of Allah described to us after his night journey.” The Caliph Umar started cleaning up the place. He asked Ka'ab al-Ahbar (كعب الأحبار), a Jewish Rabbi who had converted to Islam and came with Umar from Medina, to guide him to the place of the Rock. Umar used his cloths to remove the trash covering the Rock, and other Muslims did what Umar was doing. After cleaning up the place, Umar went to the al-Mihrab (a chamber inside the Mosque where the Imam usually stands) and started praying and reading Surat Sad from Quran.

I think someone should try to unravel the plonter of lies, myths, and unverfiable reasons as to why Al-Aksa was built where it was built, what with the claim being made now that there was no Temple on the Temple Mount and no King David of no Kingdom of Israel to lay the foundation for that temple.