‘The Connection Between the Jewish People and Jerusalem is Without Comparison’: Netanyahu Slams Abbas ‘Nakba’ Remarks

Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting held at Western Wall Tunnels in honor of Jerusalem Day.

By Ben Rappaport, United with Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting pushed back against remarks made by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week at the UN.

The special meeting was held at the Western Wall tunnels in honor of Jerusalem Day.

“[Abbas] said only days ago at the UN that the Jewish people does not have a connection to the Temple Mount, and that eastern Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian Authority.

“Therefore, he should note that today we are holding the special cabinet meeting in honor of Jerusalem at the foot of the Temple Mount, on which King Solomon built the first temple of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said.

“And again, [Abbas] should note – the heart of the historic capital of Israel, the City of David, was already here 3,000 years ago,” he added.

“The deep connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem is a connection without comparison among the nations.”

During his speech last Monday at the UN to mark the so-called “Nakba” – an Arab term meaning “catastrophe” that anti-Israel activists use to refer to the founding of the state of Israel – Abbas compared Israelis to Chief Nazi Propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

“They can’t but lie. But what can we do? They lie and lie, just like Goebbels. They lie, lie, and lie until people believe,” Abbas said at the event, according to HonestReporting.

Abbas also claimed to be a descendant of the ancient Canaanites as “proven in all historical books, including the Torah [Bible],”  asserting that both the Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem belong “exclusively” to the Islamic Waqf, according to HonestReporting.

Britain should have given the Jewish people “another island somewhere else,” he also opined, according to HonestReporting.

“Britain and the United States specifically bear political and ethical responsibility directly for the Nakba of the Palestinian people because they took part in rendering our people victims when they decided to establish and implant another entity in our historic homeland for their own colonial goals and objectives,” Abbas said, according to The Algemeiner. “And Israel would not have continued its hostility and aggression without the support it receives from these two countries.”

Israel on Thursday celebrated Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the liberation of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War.