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Do The Palestinians Have a Claim on Jerusalem?

YOWUSA.COM, October 16, 2000
Carol Hathaway-Knott

As the violence in the Middle East escalates, we’re asking ourselves why is it that the Jews and Palestinians fear and hate each other, and why is the Palestinian claim on Jerusalem so devisive to the Middle East peace process. With both sides pointing a finger at each other via the video news snippets we see nightly, are we only seeing what the spinmeisters want us to see?

We’ve seen Palestinian children shot by Israeli soldiers, and Israeli soldiers brutally murdered in the supposed safety of a Palestinian police station. A picture is a moment in time, and does not tell of events leading up to that moment in time.

The purpose of this article to provide a brief historical overview of the seldom-reported historical events that are making the Israelis react as they are.

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The Ancient Moslem Claim

The Moslem ‘claim’ to Jerusalem is based on the writings of the Koran, the holy book of the faith of Islam. Although Jerusalem is not mentioned once, the claim is drawn from an obscure passage that mentions “the Furthest Mosque”: “glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the sacred mosque to the furthest mosque.” (Sura 17:1). The open question here since Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran is how could the “Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza” be what is called the Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem today.

The faith called ‘Islam,’ as it was called by its founder, Mohammad is virtually universal among the Arab races. Its roots are found in the life and teachings of Muhammad, who died, according to tradition on June 7, 632 of the Common Era. During his time Jerusalem was a Christian City in the Byzantine Empire. Khalif Omar captured Jerusalem in 638, six years after Mohammed’s death. During this time there were only churches in Jerusalem. The Church of Saint Mary of Justinian stood on the Temple Mount.

Khalif Abd El Malik built the Dome of the Rock in 691-692, The Aksa Mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the Rock making the name “Omar Mosque” false. The Al-Aksa Mosque is in reality the reconstructed Christian–Byzantine Church of St. Mary. Around 711, Malik’s son, Abd El-Wahd ordered the reconstruction. He left the structure as it was, a basic Byzantine “basilica” structure with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular “ship’ in the center. He had added to it the onion-like dome to make it look like a mosque. He then named it El-Aksa, which even sounds like a mosque mentioned in the Koran.

As this mosque never existed at the time of Mohammed, it is inconceivable that he could have had it in mind when compiling the Koran. Many Scholars have established that the mosque in Mecca was what Mohammed referred to as the “Sacred Mosque’ and the mosque in Medina was the “Furthest Mosque”

Jerusalem has simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems, only for the Jews in their domain. Mohammed even ordered a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, though that was rescinded temporarily in an effort to convert Jews over to Islam, When that failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to the practice on February 12, 624.

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Physical Claim

If the Palestinian Moslems do not have an ancient claim to Jerusalem in the Koran, then do they have a claim to Jerusalem by the right of inhabitancy?

Facts4Peace.COM
Nationhood and Jerusalem

* Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
* Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
* For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital

Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
* Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures.

Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
* King David founded the city of Jerusalem.

Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
* Jews pray facing Jerusalem.

Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

Arab and Jewish Refugees

* In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
* The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000.

The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
* Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands.

Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

The Arab - Israeli Conflict

* The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians.

There is only one Jewish nation.
* The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost.

Israel defended itself each time and won.
* The PLO’s (Palestinian Liberation Organization’s) Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.
* Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship.

Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

A well-researched book, "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters carefully tracked the inflow of Arabs into Palestine from Syria, Transjordan, Egypt, Arabia, Persia (now Iran), et al. Shifting Fellaheen population into the area was primarily based on available employment. Before oil became a major industry, most Arabs lived at a poverty level. If job opportunities appeared, word spread and whole tribes, families and individuals migrated.

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The Jews Return to Israel

When the Jews started to return to and build up the Land of Israel, tradesmen and labor were needed. Arabs from surrounding countries came in droves, glad to find work. The British in control under the mandate watched the inflow of Arab peasants with benign disinterest, not even bothering to record their entry. The British did, however, count the Jews entering. In order to block their escape from the Holocaust in Europe, they carefully maintained their quotas of only 5000 Jews per year.

When the book, "From Time Immemorial" was published (April 1993), the Arabs and Washington Arabists were startled by this all-encompassing research. However, shortly after publication, a major campaign was mounted to discredit the evidence.

The conflict is deeper than just the right to the City of Jerusalem. Jewish Holy Sites have recently (and in the past) been desecrated by Arab Moslems and yet there is not one instance of the Jewish people ever having desecrated a single Islamic Holy Site. Jewish people have been continually denied access to areas of traditional worship when these places were under Arab rule and yet, the Israeli Government has continually respected the Moslem right to worship at the Mosques in Jerusalem.

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The Only Exception

We can find one and only one example of restriction on the Moslem right to worship.

Torah Voice, October 13, 2000
Last Friday, as reported by Ben Yoseph

I just returned from the Temple Mount. About 3,500 Moslems attended the noon hour Moslem prayers, far less than the usual Friday noon-hour prayers. All the men were over the age of 45 as IDF and Jerusalem Police refused to allow any male under 45 on the Mount on what the Palestinians were calling a Second Day of Rage.

There were some minor protests of the policy outside of the Damascus Gate, in which one Jerusalem Policeman was lightly injured and a number of Palestinian youths detained. Heated arguments were heard atop the Temple Mount but there were no gunshots and no rock throwing that I noticed.

It is quite notable that when the Palestinian Youth are not allowed to be present there is relatively no violence to report. In order to create a campaign is to fire up the media and the American people with the idea that, through a carefully constructed revision of history, Jerusalem does not belong to the Jews but rather to Arafat's Palestinians.

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Hateful Teachings

Vulnerability to violence breeds fear, and the Jews undoubtedly fear the Palestinians. It is a shaky union, where the Jews depend on Arabs to provide the necessary labor and oil for their economy. But after the Palestinian workers go home for the evening, what kind of homework are they helping their children with and why does this make the Jews so fearful of them.

Center for the Monitoring on the Impact of Peace
Abusive terminology

A telling measure of a government’s genuine interest in peace is the intensity with which it acts to replace hateful stereotypes with positive attitudes. Thus, it is disturbing that the following abusive terminology for Israelis, Jews and Israeli characteristics is being used in Palestinian Authority schoolbooks and being aired on Palestinian Authority television.

Palestinian Authority
School Books

Jews, Israelis and Israelis are:

Cunning

Deceitful

Treacherous

Disloyal

Wild animals

Jewish aggressors

Robbers

Locust

Thief

Enemy

Thieving conquerors

Thieving enemy

Enemy of prophets and believers

Israel and Israeli characteristics include:

A provocation to the Arab world

A racist Jewish administration

Zionist enemy

Oppressors

Occupied Palestine

Israeli danger

Zionist entity

Zionist greed

Zionist occupation

The map that replaces all of Israel is:

Palestine

Israeli regions cities and towns are:

"Israeli settlements in Galilee in

northern Palestine"

Israel’s Negev is:

"Southern Palestine"

Palestinian Authority
Television

Jews, Israelis and Israelis are:

Deceiver

Cheater

Liar

Cancer

Terrorists

Mean

Brutal

Inhuman

Fascist

Racist

Genocidal

Israel and Israeli characteristics include:

Oppressors

Occupier

Israeli entity

Zionist entity

Jewish gangs

The map that replaces all of Israel is:

Palestine

Palestinian Authority school children are actively taught that the Jews and Israel are the enemy, in a broad range of contexts. The school texts portray the Jew as the enemy of believers, the enemy of Islam, the enemy of the Arabs, as well as generally evil and dangerous. Jews are killers and robbers and have stolen Arab land. Modern events are misrepresented to portray Israel and Jews as the evil force in their world. Zionism is equated to Nazism; together they are depicted as the prototype examples of racism. These themes also appear regularly on PA television.

* "Complete the following blank spaces with the appropriate word: The Zionist enemy - - [attacked] - - civilians with its aircraft.

[Our Arabic Language, Part 2 for Third Grade #523 p..9]

* "Why do the Jews hate Muslim unity and want to cause division among them? Give an example of the evil attempts of the Jews, from events happening today."

[Islamic Education for Seventh Grade p. 19]

* "The Jews … have killed and evicted Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Palestine, whose inhabitants are still suffering oppression and persecution under racist Jewish administration."

[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade # 589 p. 182]

* "Who is the thief who has torn our homeland?"

[Our Arabic Language for Sixth Grade Part One #553 p. 15]

* "Write in your exercise book: An event showing the fanaticism of the Jews in Palestine against Muslims or Christians."

[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade #589 p. 182]

* "One must beware of the Jews, for they are treacherous and disloyal."

[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade #589 p. 79]

* "Racism: Mankind has suffered from this evil both in ancient as well as in modern times, for, indeed, Satan has, in the eyes of many people, made their evil actions appear beautiful... Such a people are the Jews…"

[ Islamic Education for Eighth Grade p. 95]

* The clearest examples of racist belief and racial discrimination in the world are Nazism and Zionism.

[The New History of the Arabs and the World, P. 123]

* "I learn from this lesson: I believe that the Jews are the enemies of the Prophets and the believers."

[Islamic Education, Part Two, for Fourth Grade #531 p. 67]

* "From the Uhud expedition… a number of lessons can be learned…: Treachery and disloyalty are character traits of the Jews and therefore one should beware of them."

[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade #589 p. 87]

* "The Jews adopted a position of hostility and deception towards the new religion. They called Muhammad a liar and denied him, they fought against his religion in all ways and by all means, a war that has not yet ended until today, and they conspired with the hypocrites and the idolaters against him and they are still behaving in the same way…"

[Islamic Education for Seventh Grade #564 p. 125]

* · "In many cases these Jews acted according to their known cunning and deceit, and they fomented wars [between Arab tribes]…

[Islamic Education for Ninth Grade # 589 p. 78]

* "Lessons to be learned: One must beware of civil war, which the Jews try to foment, and of their scheming against the Muslims."

[Ibid. p. 94]

* "Zionism is a political, aggressive and colonialist movement, which calls for the Judaisation of Palestine by the expulsion of its Arab inhabitants …

[Modern Arab History and Contemporary Problems,
Part Two, for Tenth Grade #613 p.49]

So during the summer breaks, when the children are not in school or doing homework, where are they spending their free time?

New York Times, August 3, 2000
Palestinian Summer Camp Offers the Games of War

ABLUS, West Bank, Aug. 2 -- It is summer camp time for 25,000 Palestinian teenagers, and strikingly unusual camps they are, too. As run by the men who handle psychological warfare for Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, they allow no horsing around in the dorm, no fun-in-the-sun by a cool clear lake, no rousing sing-alongs beside a roaring campfire.

Instead, there is the chance to stage a mock kidnapping of an Israeli leader by masked Palestinian commandos, ending with the Israeli's bodyguards sprawled dead on the ground. Next, there is the mock attack on an Israeli military post, ending with a sentry being grabbed by the neck and fatally stabbed. Finally, there is the opportunity to excel in stripping and reassembling a real Kalashnikov rifle.

Arabs, driven by racist Islamic ideology, want the Jews driven from the land. Now, to trick public opinion into the newly revised history where the Palestinians had a greater claim on Jerusalem.

Predictably the Arab youth, being taught to hate from the time they could read, would believe their own government’s lies and sell their story with conviction to a media already demonstrably hostile to Israel.

The key to teaching hate, begins with a self-serving revision of history that presents events of the past in an untrue light, or even creates events that lend themselves to a modern political aim.

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Revisionist History

Revising the history of Jerusalem has begun. Creative writers are being employed by the Arabs to develop a steady stream of "semi" facts that support Arafat's deceptive claim to Jerusalem. Excellent imaginations are already inventing links with ancient tribes long since extinct, as identifiable ancestors, the Amorites, Canaanites, Philistines with the immigrant Palestinians of today.

Writers who have been employed to create the illusion are not townspeople from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Arabia, etc. The Palestinian Authority is employing sophisticated spinmeisters who sell their services in Washington and New York. Jew hating is to be made respectable again.

The revision of history employs a simple technique: First tell the lie but quickly wrap it in a thin outer layer of truth. Using this technique, revisionist writers can claim virtually anything and the reader cannot possibly probe the complexities of swirling history known only to real historians who themselves make mistakes.

The creative semi-facts written by the Palestinian revisionists are crafted to confuse and denigrate the research about Arab migration. The objective of the campaign is to fire up the media and the American people with the idea that, through a carefully constructed revision of history, Jerusalem does not belong to the Jews but rather to Arafat's Palestinians.

Once history has been rewritten for political purposes, untruths become facts of outrage, and are used to focus hate on enemies and allies of enemies.

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Arafat’s Mufti Calls For Destruction Of U.S.

For the second time in two months, a senior Palestinian Authority official, appointed by Yasser Arafat, has called for the destruction of the United States. The PA's Islamic mufti, Ikrama Sabri, made the remarks during his Friday (September 12, 1997) sermon delivered at the Al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. The official PA radio station, VOICE OF PALESTINE, broadcast this sermon immediately after the station carried a 10-minute address to Palestinians by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Excerpts follow:

"Oh Muslims, we must raise our voices against America, its ally Britain and all the infidel nations and say that Israel is stealing our land and establishing illegal settlements ...Why does America support settlements in Israel? Are the settlements not terrorism? And therefore, America is the chief of the terrorists. Oh Allah, destroy America, her agents and her allies!

"Cast them into their own traps, and cover the White House with black! Oh Muslims, our brothers in faith everywhere, the purpose of the American Secretary of State's visit to Palestine is to support the Israeli position regarding deceitful security and fanatical settlements...The strategic covenant between Zionism and the Crusaders [Muslim reference to Christians] is a satanic alliance hostile to Islam and the Muslims and we expect no good from it.

“The Muslim masses in Palestine and the world over condemn Albright's declarations issued today and in the past two days. The masses condemn America's pro-Israeli stance, which demonstrates that global forces, the heretics, the terrorists and those filled with hate are forging an alliance against Islam and Muslims ... Oh Allah, destroy America, her agents and allies! Allah, raise the flag of Islam over the Al-Aksa mosque, Jerusalem and Palestine..."

We wonder why the Jews are afraid of the Palestinians. Perhaps is because they live amongst them. In America, we fear the neo-Nazi movement and the violence and intolerance they preach. But they live and conspire in remote areas. If they lived in our own neighborhoods and could speak out children each day we might seem them otherwise and we might fear them even more.

Before you criticize the Israelis for being fearful, just remember the words, “Oh Allah, destroy America, her agents and allies!” and who spoke them.