The start of a project to rebuild the Tiferet Yisrael synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City is infuriating Muslims. The synagogue was built in the 1860s but blown up by the Jordainan army in 1948. Muslims see the rebuilding as part of a grand plan to bring about the destruction of the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. Al Aqsa imam Mohammed Hussein denounced the start of work at the site and said that the synagogue had been built on Muslim Waqf land, in order to "create facts on the ground," surround Al Aqsa with synagogues and erase all Islamic and Arab vestiges in Jerusalem. Hussein told Muslim worshipers that Jerusalem is Muslim and Arab in character and that the “occupation” will not succeed in changing this. The Al Aqsa Institute also claimed that the land belonged to the Waqf, and was part of the Mughrabim neighborhood. He claimed that Israel carried out digs at the location for seven years and tnd systematically destroyed Mulsim antiquities it dug up. In an interview on Palestime magazine, Dr. Jamal Amru, who was presented as an expert on Jerusalem, said that the rebuilding plan was one of the most dangerous since 1967, since it was intended to Isolate Al Aqsa in the lead-up to its destruction by the “extremist groups.” Several synagogues and Jewish institutions in Jerusalem that were destroyed by Arab armies in 1948 have been restored since the Israeli capital was liberated in 1967. Each time, similar claims of "Muslim ownership" are made, as are allegations that the rebuilding of Jewish sites and neighborhoods somehow constitute an attack on Muslims. The rebuilding and dedication of the Old City's Hurva Synagogue in 2010 drew similar "controversy" despite its location well inside the Jewish Quarter.
