Al-Habbash also claimed that Herzl came to Palestine and found “culture and progress,” according to Palestinian Media Watch.
By United with Israel Staff
Top Palestinian Authority (PA) religious official Mahmoud Al-Habbash demonized father of modern political Zionism Theodor Herzl and late British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration, in a sermon last month ahead of the 102nd anniversary of the Declaration, reports Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
Al-Habbash is the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari’ah Justice as well as former adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. As documented by PMW, Al-Habbash claimed that Balfour was an anti-Semite who wanted to “get rid of the Jews.”
Balfour declared on November 2, 1917, in a letter to Baron Rothschild famously known as the Balfour Declaration, “His Majesty’s government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
In 1922, PMW explains, the League of Nations adopted this idea and made the British Mandate “responsible for putting into effect the declaration, which led to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947. In response, Britain ended its mandate on May 15, 1948, and the Palestinian Jews, who accepted the Partition Plan, declared the independent State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and together with seven Arab states attacked Israel, in what is now known as Israel’s War of Independence.”
Al-Habbash also claimed that Herzl came to Palestine and found “culture and progress,” according to PMW.
The PA leader said:
“When Herzl came to Palestine, he found in it a people, culture and progress, and said: ‘How can the Jews immigrate here? How can the state of the Jews be established here? There is a people here. We want a land without a people.
‘Therefore, we, and Britain and the Western states must act to empty Palestine of its residents, its people and throw them into the desert… And we can take them to Africa… so that the wild animals will eat them and we will be rid of the so-called Palestinian people, so that Palestine will become a land without a people for a people without a land.’”
It is well documented that the Holy Land was desolate following neglect by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 to 1917.
Indeed, in a letter written in 1867 by Mark Twain, the American author attests, “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince… It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land… Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.”
Sir John William Dawson of England wrote in 1888, “No national union and no national spirit has prevailed there.”
False Narratives and Blatant Lies
The Palestinians have long “educated” their followers worldwide with false narratives and blatant lies, including Palestinian “academics” who appear on official PA TV claiming that there is no evidence of Jewish life in the Holy Land before 1948. This “rewiring of history” is easily disproved simply by visiting nearly any ancient archaeological site in the country.
They also skillfully turn Jewish historical facts into “Palestinian” history. For example, the Bible states:
“But if you do not dispossess the inhabitants of the land, those whom you allow to remain shall be stings in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land in which you live.” (Numbers 33:55)
Al-Habbash distorted these concepts in his sermon, saying:
“Foreign people were brought [here] who have no connection to this land. Neither historically nor religiously. They were… planted… like thorns.”
Stopping the false narrative of Palestinian leaders is a near impossible endeavor. All one can do is better educate themselves on the historic and modern-day truths of Israel and speak out, as the Bible declares:
“For the sake of Zion I will not be silent, For the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still, Till her victory emerge resplendent And her triumph like a flaming torch.” (Isaiah 62:1)