The Jerusalem Municipality conducted a discussion Monday about a protest raised against the Muslim Waqf Authority's plan to build a commercial center for the Arab public near the Mt. of Olives. The Waqf oversees the Temple Mount and some other holy sites.
...the mountain top was used to light signal fires to broadcast the sighting of the new moon, which determines the start of the new Jewish month. 
Jerusalem Activist, and National Union/ National Religious Party candidate for Jerusalem council, Aryeh King raised the protest. He asserts that the new structure would impinge on the skyline of the ancient site, as seen from the Temple Mount or from the Jericho road.
King pointed out that the planned structure would obstruct the view of the Jewish cemetery where such Jewish luminaries of previous generations as the Ramban (Nachmanides), Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook and Menachem Begin, as well as many thousands of others, are buried. He called it a valued spiritual and cultural inheritance of the Jewish people, since events and ceremonies were held there during the period of the Second Temple, and the mountain top was used to light signal fires to broadcast the sighting of the new moon, which determines the start of the new Jewish month.
King presented his position Monday to the Local Planning and Building Committee, and a discussion was held on whether to adopt his position or to allow the Waqf to construct the mall. The deliberations are expected to continue for a number of further meetings.
For a decade King has been working to maintain the Mount of Olives as a historic tourist site. He stressed that "the present situation and view almost have not changed at all for the last 3,000 years, and it's been the frontal basin of the Old City. Therefore, the Arab mall project should be disallowed."