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The Palestinian leadership is using inflammatory rhetoric to distort the truth and incite violence against the Jewish state.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah party, both headed by Mahmoud Abbas, continue to endorse the Palestinian riots in Jerusalem, encourage their “escalation,” and present the situation to Palestinians as if the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem are in danger and need “defense.”
PA and Fatah leaders have almost entirely ignored the deadly attack earlier this month at the Temple Mount, when Arab terrorists murdered two Israeli border policemen. However, they are protesting fiercely against the metal detectors Israel has placed as a safety measure at the entrances to the holy site to enhance security.
On Tuesday, Israel decided to remove the detectors and replace them with a camera-based security system.
Palestinian leaders claimed the detectors constituted an Israeli “escalation,” “aggression,” and an “attack” against Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They present the new security measures as an intolerable violation of the “status quo” on the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site – and an encroachment on Muslim property.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that PA and Fatah leaders repeatedly state that all of the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall, belongs to Muslims only. They continuously spread the libel that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is under attac, and that Israel is plotting its destruction in order to build the “alleged Temple.”
During the last two weeks, PA and Fatah leaders have called for an “escalation” of the riots, urged Palestinians to “rage,” and even glorified death, encouraging Palestinians to die “for Palestine.”
‘Liberate Our Mosque’
An example of the PA’s message to Palestinians not to accept Israel’s security measures on the Temple Mount is seen in a cartoon published in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Sunday. A Palestinian kicks over a metal detector, which flips upside down to form the word “ours” in Arabic and completes the statement: “Jerusalem is ours.”
To illustrate the alleged “danger” posed by “the occupation” to the Islamic holy site, Abbas’ Fatah called on Allah for help to “liberate our mosque”:
“O Allah, liberate our mosque from the occupation’s filth, ” Fatah wrote on its official Facebook page on Friday.
PMW has documented that Palestinians often refer to the presence of Jews on the Temple Mount as “filth”and a “desecration” of the site. PA Chairman Abbas himself has said that Jewish worshipers have no right to desecrate the site “with their filthy feet.”
Abbas has also expressed his “pride” in Palestinians in Jerusalem for their current “resolve.” He has called on Arab and Islamic countries to support Palestinians in their “defense” of the Islamic and Christian holy sites, thereby alluding to the alleged “danger,” while warning Israel of the consequences of showing “contempt for the sentiments of the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims throughout the world.”
Speaking on behalf of Abbas, and referring to a “meeting of the Palestinian leadership,” Secretary-General of the PA Presidential Office Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim stated that Israel’s actions on the Temple Mount are in fact “a step on the way to establishing the alleged Temple.”
“Jerusalem is our political Qiblah (i.e., the direction for Muslim prayer, Mecca)… to which our compass will not cease to point, no matter what the sacrifices may be. There will be no Palestinian state whose capital is not Jerusalem, and Jerusalem must be purely Arab for its Muslims and Christians. We will not agree to Jewish rule or sovereignty over it…[Israel] forcing sovereignty on Jerusalem is an old plan for these followers of the Talmud… this is not about a division [between Jews and Muslims] according to [prayer] times or areas in Jerusalem (sic., on the Temple Mount), but rather it is a step on the way to establishing the alleged Temple,” Al-Rahim said, according to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.
An editorial in the official PA daily called Israel’s actions on the Temple Mount a “brutal attack against Jerusalem,” claiming they are a sign of Israel’s “plans to Judaize the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Israel Preventing Muslim Prayer?
A Fatah Central Committee member presented Israel’s metal detectors and the two-day closure of the Temple Mount as Israel’s attempt at “preventing” Palestinians from praying, reiterating the claim that Islamic holy sites are in need of “defense.”
“[Fatah] General Commissioner of Mobilization and Organization [in the West Bank], Fatah Movement Central Committee member [and PLO Central Council member] Dr. Jamal Muhaisen emphasized that despite all of the violations that the members of our people are experiencing and the attempts to stop their struggle and prevent them from praying, the young Palestinians are continuing in their struggle to defend the sites that are holy to Islam. He said: ‘We know well that all that is happening is a toll for the defense of the sanctified site that is the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Fatah stated on its official Facebook page.
The denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem is a recurring theme in the discourse of Palestinian leaders, as Palestinian Media Watch has reported numerous times.
By: United with Israel Staff
(With files form PMW)
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