Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The Muslim world is upset about archeological excavations around Jerusalem's Temple Mount because they fear it will disprove their claim that Jews never inhabited the Holy Land before 1948, an Israeli expert on Arabic matters said here.

Islamic leaders on Tuesday urged Palestinians and Muslims across the region to rally against Israel to prevent damage to the Al-Aksa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, which is located on the Temple Mount.

The calls for violence came as archeologists continued what they call "rescue" excavations, which are taking place about 50 meters (163 feet) outside the Temple Mount compound. The rescue work is part of a plan to build a new footbridge to be used by non-Muslims entering the Temple Mount.

The new bridge will replace a temporary wooden ramp that was built two years ago after the original structure leading to the Mughrabi gate partially collapsed following an earthquake and snowstorm. It is the only gate through which non-Muslim visitors can enter the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), was the site of two successive Jewish Temples built during biblical times and is currently the site of important Islamic shrines.

The most holy site in Judaism, it is one of the main points of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has been a flashpoint for Palestinian violence in the past.

In 1967, when Israel captured Jerusalem's Old City during the Six-Day War, Israel allowed the Islamic authorities to continue supervising daily affairs on the Mount, but overall security remains in Israeli hands.

The Muslims view anything that Israel is doing in Jerusalem as a sign of Israeli hegemony over the city -- an affront to their ideology, said Dr. Mordechai Kedar of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies near Tel Aviv

That is why they are protesting so much, Kedar said in a telephone interview.

Some Muslims claim that all of Jewish history was concocted after 1948 just to validate Jewish claims to the land and the city. They are afraid that if there is digging around the Temple Mount, the archeologists will find evidence that the Jews were here 2,000 years ago and that would mean that Jerusalem was and should be the Israeli capital, Kedar said.

The Muslims came to Jerusalem in the 7th century. For them, everything before that -- whether Christian or Jewish -- is irrelevant. Claims based on previous ownership have lost their validity. Islam did not come to live side by side with Christianity and Judaism. It came to replace it and to build on its ruins, Kedar said.

This is why they are so "vociferous" in their complaints about the Temple Mount, he said.

Israeli Arab Knesset Member Abas Zkoor said that although the digging was taking place outside the Temple Mount compound, it was within the mosque's "range." He demanded that the renovation plans be reviewed by a Muslim expert who could judge if the digging is jeopardizing the mosque.

Kedar noted that it didn't bother the Islamic Movement in Israel when bulldozers dug under the Temple Mount several years ago (hollowing out what has been described as the largest mosque in the Middle East), but when Israel removes something from the site, it's a different story.

"This is how they behave. This is how they talk. This is a wave of propaganda," said Kedar.

On Wednesday, police arrested Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, after he and five others attacked Israeli police near the site of the archeological dig, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

(Salah was quoted on Tuesday in connection with the work as saying it was "high time" for an uprising of the Islamic people.)

There were a few stone-throwing incidents in eastern Jerusalem on Wednesday but the area was otherwise quiet, said Rosenfeld.

Jordan's King Abdullah II said that the excavation represented a "dangerous escalation" that would not be helpful in attempts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas reportedly said that the excavations could threaten efforts for regional peace. They demonstrated Israel's desire to destroy Islamic holy sites, he said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Israel's excavations around the Temple Mount would do no harm, nor were the excavations intended to harm any holy place. "The opposite is true - they are meant to preserve the site following problems that arose in the past," she said.

Dr. Gideon Avni, director of the Excavations and Surveys Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority, told journalists at the site on Tuesday that the excavations "by no means" touch or endanger the Temple Mount.

A small mechanical digger could be seen working well outside the walls of the Temple Mount.

According to Avni, the furor over the digging is political in nature. Until now, he said, no one has leveled any professional criticism about any of the work or complaints that it would destroy or harm the Temple Mount.

The dig is one of the smaller ones that the Antiquities Authority is managing. Experts are excavating an area where three pylons supporting the footbridge will stand as well as the land the ramp runs across.

Israeli law requires excavations to be conducted in certain areas of the country before building can take place. According to the Antiquities Authority, permission to build the new footbridge was conditional on doing the excavations.

"The archeological excavations, which will last several months, will provide an opportunity to study the nature of the archeological remains in the site, and their contribution to studying Jerusalem's history is expected to be substantial," the Antiquities Authority said in a statement.