ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the plan of the Western Wall Foundation Heritage to add one floor and extend the Strauss Building (an old building at the north side of the Western Wall Plaza). The IAA reacted according to procedures at first, raising the condition of complete salvage excavations. For unknown reasons, the IAA Director decided to approve the plan without a full excavation, so the officials voided the condition, suggesting instead that archaeological inspection is sufficient. The area (360 square metres, 14–20 m deep) was given up, except a limited excavation close to the surface. As a result, only some late walls and vaults from the Mughrabi neighbourhood destroyed in 1967 were left for preservation. Unfortunately, they formed part of the planned toilet facilities of the new building. So these walls are preserved and ‘exhibited’ – without any signs, and with ‘visitors’ that come not to see antiquities but to use the toilets. It is not preservation of heritage, but another (albeit more cynical) step in the erasure of the Mughrabi Quarter.
