The world economy has slowly come out of the global financial crisis, but the current sputtering economy is good news compared to what is around the corner, says “Dr. Doom.” economist Nouriel Roubini.

An insistent “doom and gloomer,” Dr. Roubini still determines there will be a global “perfect storm” next year because of slowing economies, European debt and geopolitical risks, he said in an interview with Reuters.

The New York University professor accurately predicted the global economic crisis in 2008.

He now says that tax increases and spending cuts in the United States will help bring about the second recession in four years.

His recipe for disaster includes a hard landing for China’s economy, and for good measure he tosses in his expectation of a slowdown in emerging economies and – last but not least – war with Iran.

“Next year is the time when the can becomes too big to kick it down (the road)…then we have a global perfect storm,” Roubini said.

Roubini is a native of Turkey and the son of Iranian Jews. He briefly lived in Israel before moving to Italy and later to the United States, where he became a senior advisor in the U.S. Treasury Department.

In 2005, he wrote in Fortune magazine that housing prices were spiraling out of control due to speculation and they eventually would sink the economy, which is exactly what happened in the autumn of 2008.

Roubini also forecast that economists’ expectations of a quick and strong economic rebound in the United States were “too optimistic,” an observation that has proven to be correct.

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein should press incitement charges against MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) for tearing a New Testament and throwing it in the trash, the Knesset’s sole Christian MK, Hanna Sweid (Hadash), said Wednesday.

“This is hooliganism, bullying and an apocalyptic act of hatred that was baseless and unnecessary,” Sweid told The Jerusalem Post after Ben-Ari destroyed the book, which was mailed to all 120 MKs by a messianic Jewish organization. “This reflects the culture of a man who is dangerous to nations and religions of the world.”

The MK, a member of the Arab-Jewish socialist faction Hadash, complained to the Knesset Ethics Committee, but said he has no doubt that they will not punish Ben-Ari effectively or remove his parliamentary immunity. He was also skeptical that the Attorney-General’s office would heed his call, though he called Ben-Ari’s actions “incitement,” and expressed fears that they would encourage the public “to raise a hand against Christians.”

“I hope that [Ben-Ari] represents a minority, and such incitement won’t continue,” Sweid sighed.

According to Sweid, “Evangelicals support Ben-Ari’s path of occupation and settlements. I hope they will now see who they are dealing with.”

Sweid said he was disappointed that there was not more of an outcry, but at the same time is not accusing those who did not speak out against Ben-Ari of supporting such acts. However, the Hadash MK stated, if the public does not stand up against Ben-Ari, he will be encouraged.

At the same time, Sweid thanked Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin for his “noble and brave” condemnation of Ben-Ari in the plenum on Wednesday.

“I condemn any disrespect of holy texts of any religion, including ripping the New Testament by an MK yesterday,” Rivlin said. “Every holy book is important to its believers.”

According to the Knesset Speaker, if a parliamentarian from another country would burn a Torah and call it a provocation, the world would condemn him or her.

“Democracy is the freedom of speech, but it is not anarchy, and freedom of faith and worship is one of the founding values of this country,” Rivlin added.

On Tuesday, Ben-Ari tore up a copy of the “Book of Testaments,” combining the Tanach and New Testament in one volume, sent to all 120 MKs by The Bible Society in Israel, a messianic Judaism institution for research, publication and dissemination of holy books.

Rivlin rejected Ben-Ari’s request to respond in the plenum on Wednesday, telling him to “stop giving the Knesset a bad name.”

“Millions of Jews were murdered in the name of the New Testament, this revolting book brought massacres of Jews in the [Spanish] Inquisition and throughout history,” Ben-Ari said.

According to the National Union MK, the Bible Society wanted to “step on the corpses of the millions of martyrs that were murdered because of their Judaism.”

As for allegations that Christians support the right, Ben-Ari accused the Likud of accepting donations from Evangelicals, and said that he, like his ideological forbearer Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane, would not accept a cent from non-Jews.

The Likud declined to comment.

Ben-Ari said he has no doubt his reaction was appropriate and called for all other MKs to throw the New Testament in the trash.

After Rivlin’s condemnation in the Knesset, several MKs reacted for and against Ben-Ari in the plenum.

MK Nissim Ze’ev (Shas) said the New Testaments sent to the Knesset were written by “heretics” – meaning messianic Jews – and as such must be burned. He added that a Torah written by a female Reform Rabbi should also be incinerated.

Ze’ev condemned missionary activity, and called sending the books to MKs a “pointless provocation.”

“I got a copy of the New Testament in the mail, too, but I never thought to rip it up or burn it,” MK Masud Gnaim (UAL-Ta’al) said, calling Ben-Ari and Ze’ev racists. “As a Muslim, I respect all religions’ holy books.”

MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL-Ta’al) broke a Knesset regulation, bringing a photograph of Kahane on the plenum stage, saying he is to blame for Ben-Ari’s actions, and tearing it up.

Dr. Juergen Beuhler, Director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, said that Ben-Ari’s actions “have needlessly inflamed this situation and were an obvious stunt to gain publicity.”

“We recognize that he does not represent the Israeli mainstream, which rejects this sort of incendiary act and shows respect for the sacred books of other faiths,” Beuhler added.

The Temple Mount is under Israeli law but authorities must be “extra sensitive” to applying the laws on the site, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein wrote in a letter to legal advisors at the Jerusalem Municipality, the Jerusalem police, and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Weinstein submitted his letter a few weeks ago, but the issue came to the forefront on Tuesday due to a petition to the High Court of Justice concerning the Temple Mount which is expected to be heard within the next week.

The petition was filed by the fringe activist group Temple Mount Faithful, who claim that infrastructure work carried out to strengthen the Dome of the Rock is harming the Foundation Stone, the large stone believed to have held the Ark of the Covenant. The group filed the petition and said that the work done by the Muslim Waqf is not under the supervision of the Israeli authorities and is damaging the holiest site in Judaism.

Weinstein stressed that the Temple Mount must abide by all laws from the Planning and Building committee and the Antiquities Authority. He also wrote that any time authorities need to “test the application of law in the Temple Mount complex” they should be pragmatic and take the area’s unique status into consideration.

Weinstein suggested that any reports on the situation should be sent to the National Security Council and the cabinet secretary.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby said the police maintain a continuous presence on the Temple Mount to ensure that the IAA has full access to the construction work. “There are some people who want to make noise, claiming that the work is damaging and doing this and that, but all of the work being done there are is under supervision of the Israel Antiquities Authority without any kind of damage to any antiquities,” he said. Ben Ruby added that the Foundation Stone is covered in nylon tarps and the scaffolding is built around the area. IAA refused to comment on the issue.

Temple Mount Faithful director Gershon Salomon accused Weinstein of “fleeing from the issue” and stressed that even if there is no physical damage the construction is still “desecrating it in the most grotesque way imaginable.” The High Court of Justice is expected to examine the issue in the coming week.

A response from the State Attorney’s Office to the petition from Sunday stressed that since the Dome of the Rock was built 1300 years ago, the infrastructure work is essential in order to strengthen the roof.

We might not be able to get there yet, but as NASA says, ‘this is the next best thing’.

From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain where the voyaging robot spent the Martian winter.

This scene, recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes the rover’s own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, provides a sense of sitting on top of the rover and taking in the view.

Its release this week coincides with two milestones: Opportunity completing its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and NASA continuing past 15 years of robotic presence at Mars on July 4.

The new panorama is presented in false color to emphasize differences between materials in the scene.

It was assembled from 817 component images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8, 2012, while Opportunity was stationed on an outcrop informally named ‘Greeley Haven’. on a segment of the rim of ancient Endeavour Crater.

Pancam lead scientist Jim Bell said: ‘The view provides rich geologic context for the detailed chemical and mineral work that the team did at Greeley Haven over the rover’s fifth Martian winter, as well as a spectacularly detailed view of the largest impact crater that we’ve driven to yet with either rover over the course of the mission.’

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last for three months.  NASA’s next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, is on course for landing on Mars next month.

Opportunity’s science team chose to call the winter campaign site Greeley Haven in tribute to Ronald Greeley (1939-2011), a team member who taught generations of planetary science students at Arizona State University.

‘Ron Greeley was a valued colleague and friend, and this scene, with its beautiful wind-blown drifts and dunes, captures much of what Ron loved about Mars,’ said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, principal investigator for Opportunity and Spirit.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Later this year, the car-sized Curiosity Rover will land on Mars.

Unlike earlier rovers, Curiosity carries equipment to gather samples of rocks and soil, process them and distribute them to onboard test chambers inside analytical instruments.

It has a robotic arm which deploys two instruments, scoops soil, prepares and delivers samples for analytic instruments and brushes surfaces.

Its assignment is to investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.

The goal of the mission is to assess whether the landing area has ever had or still has environmental conditions favorable to microbial life.

Curiosity will land near the foot of a layered mountain inside Gale crater, layers of this mountain contain minerals that form in water.

The portion of the crater floor where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments.

Curiosity will also carry the most advanced load of scientific gear ever used on Mars’ surface, a more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers.

Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003.

On July 8 this year we started the three weeks of mourning that lead up to Tisha Be’av (Ninth of Av) which commemorates the destruction of the Solomonic Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. They not only destroyed the Temple but also razed the city of Jerusalem and took thousands of its inhabitants into exile to Babylon.

This was the second time the Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem. They had already attacked it in 597 BCE but had not wreaked havoc or destruction.

They took our king Jehoyachin and the upper classes into exile and installed his uncle, Zedekiah, in the role of puppet king, and left it at that. But when, eleven years later, Zedekiah attempted to throw off the Babylonian yoke with the help of Egypt, the Babylonians got wind of the conspiracy and came back in force to inflict utter destruction, kill thousands, and take further thousands into captivity.

It looked like the end of the road for us and Jerusalem.

But who were the Babylonians? Their empire was cruel, but their people at home were civilized.

Their capital, Babylon, was one of the most beautiful in the East and their rituals were interesting. The center of the city was the multi-towered processional way that led up to the Ishtar Gate, the finely tiled and highly colored monumental arch, now reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

At the annual New Year ceremony, the local gods were paraded along the processional way and the festival of 10 days commenced with a private ritual near the gate.

Here the statue of Marduk, god of the city, confronted the Emperor, and the High Priest slapped the Emperor’s face and pulled his ears until he cried, confessed his sins and pleaded for mercy. It was only then that the High Priest, representing Marduk, gave the Emperor the right to carry on his rule for another year.

SO MUCH is clear from the early Akitu (New Year ceremony) cuneiform tablets and shows that each year the all-powerful Emperor was subjected to ritual humiliation, and made to show repentance, before he was allowed to continue his rule, and before the agricultural year could safely begin.

The ceremony took place also near to the famous ziggurat, called Etemenanki, meaning “foundation of heaven and earth,” a pretty exact specification of the Tower of Babel described in Genesis 11:4.

The tower was built with a casing of valuable burnt brick, which has subsequently been robbed over the centuries, and the resulting mass of the internal unburnt brick now remains on site as a heap of mud set in a pool of stagnant water.

Much of the rest of the city lies hidden south of the suburbs of Baghdad, in spite of Saddam Hussein having taken pains to have important sections rebuilt in the old style, to try and impress on visitors that the modern state formed a continuity with the splendors of the ancient empire.

The New Year renewal ceremonial was conducted over the first 10 days of the year, that started in Nisannu, equivalent to our first month of spring, Nisan. All the names of our other months follow the Babylonian titles, and our square Hebrew script was altered during the Exile from the previous ancient ideographic Paleo-Hebrew to the modern square script, under the influence of the shapes of the Babylonian and Akkadian cuneiform.

Similarly our yearly calculations, incorporating a leap month three times in 19 years, are derived from a form of the Babylonian Metonic cycle which corrects the lunar calendar to bring it into line with the reality of the solar system.. Even the 10 days of the Babylonian New Year ceremony are reflected in our 10 days of repentance that fall at the beginning of the year from Rosh Hashana (New Year) to the Atonement Fast of Yom Kippur.

In this connection we see that our four traditional fasts, besides the Day of Atonement and the Fast of Esther, are all connected with the Babylonians, three relating to their destruction of Jerusalem and the fourth, the Fast of Gedaliah, commemorating the day that our royalists murdered the Babylonian- appointed governor Gedaliah, when the people were expecting such terrible retaliation from the Babylonians that many fled to Egypt carrying the prophet Jeremiah with them.

When Zedekiah rebelled, Jeremiah had foreseen the terrible destruction that was to come and he had warned our people that the only way to avoid it was to submit to the foreign yoke, but he was ignored and vilified for his unpatriotic prophecies. When he saw that Exile was inevitable, he advised the people to settle in the foreign land, build houses and take wives, and live in peace with their surroundings (Jer. 29:5-7) and in a way that is what happened. The people carried on their lives, and it looks as if the Priests and Levites even continued with their religious duties.

Traditional commentators claim that the synagogue was founded during the Exile, but there is no evidence for that (in fact synagogues first appear in Egypt in the third century BCE). However there is some evidence to show that there may have been a Jewish temple in Babylon. When Ezra returns to Israel, he is short of Levites for the renewed temple and he calls for them to be sent from Casiphia (Ezra 8:17), where we can presume they were officiating throughout the Exile. Casiphia today is located near to Baghdad.

If this is correct, it would explain why Joshua the High Priest was still officiating and why he is described in Zechariah 3:4 as appearing in filthy garments. It was not, as some commentators explain, because his children had married out, but because he had acted as Cohen Gadol (High Priest) at a local Jewish temple in Babylon, away from the prescribed one in Jerusalem.

ALTHOUGH BY the waters of Babylon we sat and wept, many significant things happened there.

The calendar year and months were regulated, the Hebrew script was modernized, the priestly ritual continued and many of our traditions were collected and compiled.

It was after all Ezra who, on the Return, read the Torah to the people for the first time (Neh. 8:3), and they fell down when they heard it.

It must have been Ezra who had collected the many traditions and put them in order so the people could hear them, comprehend them, and live by their rules. They had to put away their foreign ways and partners, it was hard and even life-threatening, but it welded everyone into a nation of Godfearers that had its own religious philosophy and regulations.

It was the hardship and pressure of the Exile that had achieved this, and when Zerubbabel and the High Priest Joshua led the people back in the first and second waves of the Return to Zion, it meant that we were now a unified nation, different from the Babylonians and the early Bnei Yisrael, and welded into a people that could survive for thousands of years. We were now an entity that could weather the take-over of Jerusalem by the Seleucids and survive another massive destruction of the city by the Romans, 600 years after that of the Babylonians.

We rightly mourn the terrible destructions of Jerusalem perpetrated by the Babylonians and the Romans, but the Babylonian Exile was the crucible in which our future was forged.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged Europe to adopt a more balanced approach to Israel during a conversation held on Monday in Jerusalem with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, according to an official who was in the meeting.

Netanyahu spoke warmly about the close ties between Israel and Europe and the need to strengthen bilateral cooperation.

But he also questioned Europe’s political positions when it comes to Israel.

National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, who was also at the meeting, said he was concerned by the lack of balance when it came to Europe’s stance on Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza compared to its statements about vandalism against West Bank mosques, said the official.

Amidror recalled an incident in which he received a phone call from a senior European official who said that the mosque incidents were of grave concern to the EU, the same day that Palestinians fired scores of rockets at the South. But the pressing issue for Europe that day was not the rocket fire, but the mosques, he said, according to the official in the meeting. On that same day, EU ambassadors also called the Foreign Ministry about mosque vandalism.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud) also spoke with Barroso about the disproportionate manner in which Israel is treated at the United Nations Human Rights Council. He took issue with Friday’s UNHRC appointment of a three-member panel to probe Israeli settlement activity, particularly in light of the violence by the Syrian government against its citizens.

He noted that Syria wants to seek UNHRC membership. He called on Europe and the United States to cut its ties with the council, as Israel did this spring.

Rivlin warned Barroso that those who believe that the settlements are a cancer have fallen prey to anti-Israel demagoguery.

“The truth is simple: When the Palestinians want peace there will be peace. Neither the settlements, nor their evacuation, constitute an obstacle to peace,” Rivlin told him.

Barroso told Rivlin that settlement activity makes life difficult for the Palestinians and does not advance peace.

During Barroso’s meeting with Netanyahu he called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume direct negotiations, which have been frozen since September 2010.

“I really think it is a good moment to restart some hope regarding the so-called Middle East peace process,” Barroso said.

His meeting with Netanyahu followed those he held Sunday in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and in Jericho with PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

News that a liberal coalition headed by Mahmoud Jibril, a Western-educated politician, was reportedly in the lead in the Libyan election surprised many observers on Monday.

The expectation was that Libya would follow in the footsteps of other Arab Spring countries – like Egypt and Tunisia – and elect an Islamist government.

One person, however, who was not surprised by the turn of events, was Prof. Maurice Roumani, an expert on Libya at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

“There will be Islamists and Salafis in Libya but they will not dictate the national agenda,” Roumani told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

“The country’s problems are more geographic,” referring to the strong rivalry between its two main regions Cyrenaica and Tripolitinia and the many fiercely independent tribes in between.

Roumani, who was born in Benghazi and left the country in 1960 at age 21, said the country’s “fragmentation is its source of strength against the Islamists. There, there is tribal power. A society of tribes.”

“First of all Islam in Libya in general is not a homogeneous group,” he said. “The idea that Islamists are going to take over in Libya is not correct.”

Having said that, the political scientist said religion will continue to have an important place in Libya’s Muslimmajority society. To expect anything else, he said, would be folly.

“Islam is the backbone of Arab civilization and we must accept it whether it’s in Libya, Tunisia or Egypt, otherwise we are knocking our heads against the wall,” he said. “In Israel is Judaism not part of its politics?” He said the Mediterranean country is now entering a crucial time. How it deals with some key issues will help shape its future.

“First we have to look whether we will have a federal state or united Libya,” he said. “Second, we would like to see what kind of constitution emerges. Third, we need to see if the militias will surrender their weapons and a strong army will provide security. This country had no political institutions for 40 years or more, even under King Idris,” the monarch deposed by Muammar Gaddafi when he came to power.

Those expecting Libyan Jews to be able to return to the country they were forcibly kicked out of during the late 1960s by the slain despot Gaddafi are likely to be disappointed, he said.

“I am a believer that history moves on, it does not have a reverse gear,” he said.

“You cannot reestablish a Jewish community there after migration and the conflict.”

Even compensation of some Libyan Jews, who were forced to leave vast material assets behind when they were sent into exile, may remain stalled in the foreseeable future, despite intensive lobbying by Jewish groups and the State Department.

“Libya is not going to take a step much different than Middle-Eastern Arab governments, especially when the Israeli-Arab conflict was not resolved,” he said. “If I were a Libyan Muslim I would expect it to be the part of the final settlement, otherwise it might turn into a pariah state.”

On a personal note, Roumani said he would like to visit the country he left 52 years ago and has never been back to – but only as a tourist, not a returning resident.

“Do I feel like going to see where I was born and did my bar mitzva? Yes,” he said. “I would be interested to see if some of my former friends, who were Greeks, Maltese, Italians and Muslims, are still there.”

Nowadays it seems that Babylon just can’t catch a break.

Once the center of the ancient world, it has been despoiled in modern times by Saddam Hussein’s fantasies of grandeur, invading armies and village sprawl.

Now come two more setbacks for the city famous for its Hanging Gardens and Tower of Babel: Parts of its grounds have been torn up for an oil pipeline, and a diplomatic spat is hampering its bid for coveted UNESCO heritage status.

The pipeline was laid in March by Iraq’s Oil Ministry, overriding outraged Iraqi archaeologists and drawing a rebuke from UNESCO, the global guardian of cultural heritage.

Then Iraq’s tourism minister blocked official visits to the site by the World Monuments Fund, a New York-based group that is helping Babylon secure a World Heritage site designation after three rejections.

It’s payback for an unrelated dispute with the US over the fate of Iraq’s Jewish archives, rescued from a waterlogged basement after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and taken to the US.

“I will make Babylon a desolate place of owls, filled with swamps and marshes. I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction,” God warns in Isaiah 14:22-23.

Today desolation and destruction are all too evident.

Uncontrolled digging, paving and building have resulted from Saddam Hussein’s heavy-handed attempt to replicate the splendor of a city dating back nearly 4,000 years.

Since his downfall foreign troops have camped in parts of Babylon’s 10 square kilometers (four square miles). Growing villages are spilling onto its grounds and rising groundwater threatens the ancient mud brick ruins in the roughly 20 percent of its area that has been excavated over the past century.

“It’s a mess and there are a load of problems,” said Jeffrey Allen, a consultant for the World Monuments Fund. “A lot of this feeling you get from a major archaeological site is missing from Babylon.”

Babylon, straddling the Euphrates River some 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad, was both a testament to human ingenuity and a symbol of false pride and materialism.

It produced two of the major kings of antiquity — Hammurabi, author of one of the world’s oldest written legal codes, and Nebuchadnezzar II, conqueror of Jerusalem in 597 BCE.

With towering temples and luxurious palaces, Babylon was transformed by Nebuchadnezzar into the largest city of its time. His Hanging Gardens, according to legend a multilevel horticultural gift to his homesick wife, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Babylon is mentioned dozens of times in the Bible, which tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the Jewish temple and enslavement of the Jews. Pop lyrics were inspired by the verse capturing the Jews’ pain of exile: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalms 37-1).

Visitors would have to struggle to imagine the ancient city once nestled among date plantations.

There are still palms, but otherwise Saddam’s works overpower the scene — modern brick and mortar on brittle ruins, a wide thoroughfare and a new palace for the latter-day despot.

After he was toppled, coalition forces camped on the grounds for 20 months, according to a 2009 UNESCO report. It said they dug trenches, spread gravel and damaged parts of Babylon’s famed Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way.

The new oil pipeline runs 1.7 meters (six feet) under Babylon for about 1.5 kilometers (a mile), alongside two other pipelines dug in the Saddam era.

The Oil Ministry says no artifacts were found during the digging, and that the new pipeline is needed to ease energy. Spokesman Assem Jihad said the ministry is looking for an alternative route, but needs time. “I think this issue was blown out of proportion,” he said.

The antiquities department has nonetheless sued the ministry, demanding it remove the pipeline. UNESCO said it wrote to the Iraqi authorities, expressing concern.

Meanwhile, the World Monuments Fund is trying to help authorities protect the ruins from rising groundwater caused by the government’s irrigation policies, said Allen, the group’s Babylon site manager.

The WMF is training Iraqi staff and helping to prepare Babylon’s bid for UNESCO recognition. Previously, the Saddam-era reconstructions were a major obstacle to getting the nod.

Allen said one option is to embrace some of Babylon’s flaws and nominate the site as a “cultural landscape,” which would include some of Saddam’s additions, such as his hilltop palace.

But now the WMF itself has fallen foul of officialdom. Iraq’s government decided several months ago to suspend ties with US universities and institutions involved in archaeology in Iraq.

It’s part of a long-running dispute over the fate of the Iraqi Jewish archives. The trove of books, photos and religious items were found in Baghdad by US troops and taken to the US for study and preservation under an agreement with Iraqi authorities that stipulated they would be returned.

But Iraqi authorities grew impatient to get them back, and now Tourism Minister Liwa Smaysin alleges that the US sent some of the artifacts to Israel for an exhibition, a claim denied both by the US State Department and Israel’s Antiquities Authority. The US says the archives will eventually be returned to Iraq.

Allen said he was recently prevented from visiting the site. WMF officials expressed hope the measures are temporary and that the group can continue some of its work.

Qais Rashid, head of Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, said the government also called off a US training course for employees of the antiquities department.

“This is a big loss for us, the frozen relations,” he said.

But he also argued that Babylon will remain a top archaeological attraction, regardless of its formal designation.

“If it’s not listed, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “Babylon can survive on its own.”