ABSTRACT
Since our study deals with salvage excavations of the IAA, readers may conclude that the ethical and professional issues are limited to the IAA. Chapter 8 warns against this conclusion, analyzing in a nutshell the recent involvement of Tel Aviv University in the archaeology of East Jerusalem. This means work performed for El-Ad and receiving funds and salaries from it. The IAA allowed the University to step into ‘its own turf.’ In return, professors from Tel Aviv University signed opinions for the IAA Director, supporting the maximal plans of the Ha-Liba Building and the burying of the Cardo in a basement. Tel Aviv University expanded since to the Givati site in Silwan. The right-wing government plans a large-scale cable-car that will cut across Jerusalem, connecting to the El-Ad centre there. The real motivation is political: preventing a peace settlement that may require partition. For that aim the skyline of Jerusalem is sacrificed. So far, Israel planted new neighbourhoods on the horizons of East Jerusalem, built the separation fence to keep Jerusalem inseparable, spread houses with fanatic settlers in the midst and dug tunnels underneath. Soon cable cars will run above Palestinian neighbourhoods, with the travellers above mocking the untermenschen underneath. No light to the nations shall emanate from this new Zion, but Tel Aviv University is too busy to notice, deep at the bottom of the Givati pit, excavating not for King and Country, but for career and fame.
