. Israeli Arab Incitement over Temple Mount

Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A7 News

Israeli Arabs, along with the entire Arab world, have escalated a propaganda campaign to stir up agitation as great or greater than that of the PA, while Israel complains to the United States that the Palestinian Authority is guilty of incitement against Israel. The Israeli government has raised the issue of the PA with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, but the other provocations are far beyond his reach. The Islamic Movement, headed by Arabs holding Israeli citizenship and living in the north, recently posted an announcement charging that “Israel Occupation Forces” attacked Muslim worshippers at the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. There were no reports from the police or from Israel about it and foreign media mentioned no such attack.

The Movement’s website posted an announcement, translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), stating, "We strictly denounce the vicious and criminal attack perpetrated today after Friday prayer. Al-Aqsa is our mosque.”

The Saudi Arabia-based Arab News website, while describing King Abdullah as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” noted that he” initiated the setting up of an Al-Quds uprising fund” in addition to proposing the 2002 plan that Israel surrender all of the land restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967. Saudi Arabia suggested that if Israel were to agree to its plan, the Arab League would normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.

The British-based Muslim News website reported that nine Arabs were wounded in a clash with during an arrest by police, who allegedly “attempted to kidnap a number of residents,” with the term ”kidnap” becoming more common in Arab media when Israeli security forces arrest suspected terrorists.

On Friday, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Tayssir Tamimi, warned that Israeli development plans in Jerusalem are aimed at excluding Muslims and Christians.

“Jerusalem is Arab land,” he said in a report by Eurasia Review, which added, “The Mufti also warned that by 2014 Israel is planning an ‘exclusively Jewish district’ in Jerusalem where any signs of a Christian or Muslim presence would be forbidden.”

The same report repeated previous Palestinian Authority allegations that excavation work in the Old City has damaged the structure of the Al Aqsa mosque.

The facts are different. During the period from 1949-1967, when Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem, it prohibited Jews from visiting the Western Wall and also banned Christians, except for high-profile dignitaries, from all holy sites. Since Israel regained sovereignty in the areas in the 1967 Six-Day War, it opened all of the holy sites to members of all religions and has acted to preserve them.