Idolatry?

First, a disclaimer: Yes, I understand why the Western wall is important to millions of Jews (and Muslims, apparently). The temples, yada-yada, fine.

But this is just ridiculous:

The Kotel Hakatan came to public attention in 1972. The Jerusalem municipality temporarily stopped work undertaken by the Religious Affairs Ministry in the Western Wall tunnel, after it severely compromised the structural safety of one of the Arab houses close to the Iron Gate, one of the entrance gates to the Temple Mount compound.

The house became cracked and its residents and their neighbors who lived above the excavation area feared that their houses would meet the same fate as those of the Mugrabi neighborhood, which were destroyed in the construction of the Western Wall's plaza. The initial proposal to declare the house dangerous and wreck it as a public hazard was blocked by the municipality. A city engineer, acting on the mayor's orders, tried to save the building, but his men were very reckless. The city workers drilled four holes in the wall adjacent to the house (the Kotel Hakatan) to provide bar supports for the house.

The country was in an uproar. The drilled wall was the northern segment of the Western Wall. The distance of the drilling from the famous Western Wall, and the fact that it was an innocent mistake did nothing to stop the storm. The Orthodox and religious sector considered the mistake to be a sacrilege. The then chief rabbi, Yitzhak Nissim, conducted a protest prayer service at the site. The rabbi of the Western Wall collected the fragments of the drilled stones and presented them to the congregation in glass jars in the Western Wall Plaza. Dust from the drilling was collected in vases for safekeeping.

The Muslim religious leadership was also concerned, for completely different reasons. In late Muslim tradition, the Prophet Mohammed tied his steed to the Western Wall on his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. The then mufti of Jerusalem suggested summoning Muslim clerics to the Kotel Hakatan to plug the holes with their own hands.

I'm sorry, but it's a freaking WALL! And it's not even the IMPORTANT wall for Jews, because it's really just the retaining wall of the guy who built his temple AROUND the original temple! The original mountain is still there, and the temples are long-gone- stop worshipping bricks! It's just silly!

Not to vastly oversimplify everything, but might this sort of logic be part of why people are still killing each other over there? Land's sacred, sand's sacred, walls are sacred, even dust is sacred, apparently- and no, the dust is rightfully mine, for as it says in the Torah, "thou shalt sweep up my holy dust and deposit in a vase, and if no vase can be found, thou shalt use a coffee can, but not before washing it thoroughly. Thus sayeth the Lord." So, you know, piss off, Khalid.

Seriously, collecting dust from the Kotel? Are you guys nuts? I mean, at least the Chabadniks worship Schneerson's actual chair. Jesus.