Posted tagged ‘Palestinian lies’

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Commendable defiance

December 8, 2017

Commendable defiance, Israel Hayom, David M. Weinberg, December 8, 2017

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

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The Palestinians have no one to blame except themselves for President Donald Trump’s declaration on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The same goes for European leaders, who were busy this week condemning Trump’s move.

The Palestinians and the Europeans brought this on themselves by running an ugly campaign of denialism and denigration against Israel. Their brazen persistence in delegitimizing the Jewish people’s historic roots and rights in Jerusalem led to this defiant and ultimately honorable result: a reassertion of reality.

Over the past decade, and certainly since he rejected then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2014 peace initiative, President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has been on an outrageous path, an assault on the core identity of Jews and Israelis and an offensive to deny the most fundamental, basic building blocks of Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.

At Abbas’ express urging, UNESCO has adopted insane and nonsensical resolutions declaring Jerusalem an exclusively Muslim heritage city and criminalizing Israel’s custodianship of the holy city. Most of Israel’s European allies went along with this affront, either voting for or abstaining on the resolutions.

So what do you do when the Big Lie is evident everywhere, and no one seems to care about the truth? What do you do when Abbas repugnantly engages in gross inversions of reality and says that Israel is “paving the way for bitter religious conflict” that he doesn’t want – when, in fact, it is he who is driving the conflict, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Israel?

What you do is keep the faith, and re-assert basic truths, such as the fact that for 3,000 years Jerusalem has been the Jewish people’s ancient patrimony and that for 70 years Jerusalem has been the sovereign capital of the State of Israel.

What do you do when Abbas shamefully, regularly and falsely accuses Israel of committing “violations” against Islamic and Christian holy sites, including the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, when it is his Waqf Muslim religious trust that has turned Al-Aqsa into an armed fortress and turned every Jewish visit to Judaism’s holiest site into a skirmish?

What do you do when it his Waqf that wantonly has dug up and destroyed thousands of years of Jewish archaeological treasures on the Temple Mount, and the world has stood by without protest? What do you do when Abbas’ people have destroyed Joseph’s Tomb, sought to destroy Rachel’s Tomb, and have run Christians out of Bethlehem?

You change the way Israeli (and  hopefully now American) diplomats present Israel’s case by emphasizing Israel’s legal, historic and religious rights in this land, not just our security needs. You do not forfeit to the Palestinians the international discourse regarding human, national and civil rights, especially on Jerusalem.

You push back by declaring – against the advice of all the inveterate peace process experts and high-and-mighty European commissioners – that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, plain and simple.

What do you do when Abbas has the gall to call for “international protection for Palestinians in Jerusalem against assaults by the occupation army” and accuses Israel of “executing” teenage Palestinian terrorists, when it is Israelis who have to be afraid of Palestinian stonings, knifings and shootings in every corner of this country and who are (uncomfortably and heroically) restraining themselves from unleashing the full force of Israel’s military?

You demonstrate resilience. And you ask your good friends in the U.S., be they Republican or Democrat, evangelical or secular, to defend you and to affirm that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

What do you do when the U.N. secretary general and the pope swallow every bit of Abbas’ bile about exclusive Arab rights in Jerusalem, while ignoring his denial of Christian history in Jerusalem? What do you do when they denounce “hateful discourse on both sides,” when there is no moral equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian discourse and no factual equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian propensities to violence?

You do not go running scared. You make the determination not to be cowed by yet more threats of Palestinian rage. You resolve not to melt from adopting moral policies just because of Arab stonings, stabbings, bombings and other forms of bullying.

What do you do when the president and secretary of state of your main ally, Barack Obama and John Kerry of the blessedly expired previous American administration, doubt Israel’s sincerity in maintaining calm on the Temple Mount and cast aspersions on the defensive measures taken by the Israel Police and IDF in response to Palestinian terrorism, when in fact Israel has studiously (and I think too diligently) maintained the status quo on Temple Mount, and its security forces have acted with immense restraint in response to Palestinian atrocities?

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

David M. Weinberg (www.davidmweinberg.com) is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Categories: Europe and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority and peace, Palestinian issues, Palestinian lies, Pope Francis, Trump and Israel, Trump and Jerusalem, UN and Israel
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The Big New Palestinian Lie

October 19, 2017

The Big New Palestinian Lie, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, October 19, 2017

(“New” lie? They have been using it for years. — DM)

It is precisely the inflammatory speech of Abbas and his senior officials, expressed at every possible podium, which has been trying to turn the conflict into a religious one.

If any side has turned the conflict into a religious one, it is the Palestinian side, which has long depicted Jews as sons of monkeys and pigs, enemies of Allah, and killers of prophets. When Abbas and other Palestinians accuse Jews on a daily basis of “storming” and “desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they are firing the first shots in their religious war against Israel and the Jews.

By turning the conflict into a religious one, the Palestinians are hoping to avoid any discussion about important issues such as security, borders, the status of Jerusalem, anti-Israel incitement and assaults on public freedoms under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Palestinian leaders do not feel comfortable discussing any of these issues; that is why they prefer to make the debate appear as if it is about religious issues.

Despite vocal and self-righteous claims to the contrary, Palestinian leaders continue to incite their people and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world against Israel and Jews. For the past two and a half years, these leaders have been accusing Israel and Jews of seeking to turn the Israeli-Arab conflict into a religious one. The accusation refers specifically to visits by Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The truth, however, is just the opposite: it is the Palestinians that have been aiming at every turn to transform the political and territorial conflict into a religious one.

By turning the conflict into a religious one, the Palestinians are hoping to avoid any discussion about important issues such as security, borders, the status of Jerusalem, anti-Israel incitement and assaults on public freedoms under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. Palestinian leaders do not feel comfortable discussing any of these issues; that is why they prefer to make the debate appear as if it is about religious issues.

Palestinian leaders are also hoping that the entire Islamic world will rally against Israel once they are told that Islamic holy sites are allegedly being targeted and desecrated by Jews.

The Palestinian Authority is toe-to-toe with Hamas in this unceasing incitement. The two rival Palestinian parties may disagree about almost everything, but when it comes to libeling Israel and Jews, they have no differences.

Jewish tours of the Temple Mount in the past two and a half years, contrary to Palestinian claims, have not affected the “status quo” or existing state of affairs at the holy site whatsoever. The Islamic holy sites, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, have not been “defiled” or “destroyed” as the result of the presence of Jews at the Temple Mount. More significantly, Muslims’ access to their holy sites on the Temple Mount remains unchanged. Every day, thousands of Muslim worshippers converge on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock to perform prayers. On Fridays, the number of Muslim worshippers is sometimes estimated at tens of thousands.

Jewish visits to the Temple Mount are restricted to the early hours of the morning. Jewish visitors, in fact, are even banned from praying at the Temple Mount. The current regulations on the Temple Mount explicitly forbids praying by Jews, and the police have banned Jews from carrying any articles that might lead a Jew to pray. Jews who visited the Temple Mount during the recent autumn harvest holiday of Sukkot were forbidden from bringing the “Four Species” — the citrus, myrtle, willow and palm frond — that are mandated by the Torah to be used as part of the services on each of the seven days of the holiday.

These restrictions, however, have not stopped the Palestinians from pursuing their campaign of incitement against Israel and Jews. At the core of this campaign is the false and libelous claim that Israel is seeking to destroy the Islamic holy sites and rebuild the Third Temple on their ruins. They supplement this fabricated and malicious charge with the unholy statement that the Jews are “defiling with their filthy feet” the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Notably, it is the same excuse that Osama bin Laden used against the United States when he said that Americans were “defiling” Saudi Arabia simply by walking on the ground there.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s famous statements from September 2015 continue to reverberate:

“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem. We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing.”

Shortly after Abbas made that announcement — an echo of the same false charge issued in 1941by the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini not only to expel Jews from the land but to murder them, and that has been dusted off and used ever since — the Palestinians launched what has become known as the “Knife Intifada,” a wave of terror attacks that has so far resulted in the murder of more than 40 Israelis.

Abbas has never retracted his blood libel, or even tried to educate his people for peace. Instead, exactly as Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini did, Abbas has doubled down on inciting his people against Israel and Jews while using Jewish visits to the Temple Mount as a pretext.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (pictured) has never retracted his blood libel, or even tried to educate his people for peace. Instead, he has doubled down on inciting his people against Israel and Jews. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The blood of Israeli, Christian and Palestinian victims is on his hands — including many Muslim terrorists who were inspired and driven to their deaths by his deliberately subversive rhetoric.

It is precisely the inflammatory speech of Abbas and his senior officials, expressed at every possible podium, which has been trying to turn the conflict into a religious one.

The latest example occurred this week, when one of Abbas’s top associates, Fatah leader Azzam Al-Ahmed, repeated the tired old claim that Israel’s actions were threatening to turn the conflict into a religious one. Al-Ahmed told parliamentarians from around the world, with his tongue in his cheek:

“We won’t allow the conflict with Israel to turn into a religious conflict, as right-wing extremist Israeli groups are trying to do against Islamic and Christian holy sites under the protection of the occupation forces.”

Al-Ahmed’s statement is part of a Palestinian propaganda campaign designed to frame Israel and Jews and depict them as being responsible for triggering a religious war against Muslims and Christians. These libels advance anti-Semitism and provide ammunition to Israel- and Jew-haters worldwide. It is also the kind of rhetoric that drives many Palestinians to grab a knife and set out to kill the first Jew they meet.

The Palestinians are seeking to turn the conflict into a religious one as part of a strategy to rally as many Muslims and Christians as possible against Israel and Jews. By talking endlessly about a religious conflict, the Palestinians are actually revealing their true desire. They seek a religious conflict because such an incendiary situation distracts attention from the morass of problems at home, particularly the failure of Palestinian leaders to provide a better living for their people and to end corruption and bad government.

Palestinian leaders, from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, are redirecting the conflict to the topic of religion the better to promote the blood libel that Jews are evil and supposedly even “killed some of the prophets” as is claimed in the Koran:

And [recall] when you said, “O Moses, we can never endure one [kind of] food. So call upon your Lord to bring forth for us from the earth its green herbs and its cucumbers and its garlic and its lentils and its onions.” [Moses] said, “Would you exchange what is better for what is less? Go into [any] settlement and indeed, you will have what you have asked.” And they were covered with humiliation and poverty and returned with anger from Allah [upon them.] That was because they [repeatedly] disbelieved in the signs of Allah and killed the prophets without right. (Koran 2:61-62)

If any side has turned the conflict into a religious one, it is the Palestinian side, which has long depicted Jews as sons of monkeys and pigs, enemies of Allah and killers of prophets. When Abbas and other Palestinians accuse Jews on a daily basis of “storming” and “desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they are firing the first shots in their religious war against Israel and the Jews. In their false charge that Israel is conducting excavation work beneath the Temple Mount in order to bring about the collapse of the Islamic holy sites, no one but they are fanning the flames of religious war. Finally, the stalwart Palestinian denial of any Jewish link to the Temple Mount, where the Jews’ first and second Temples once stood, is a clear declaration of what they hope will be received as a religious war on Israel and Jews.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.

Categories: "Religious conflict", Palestinian lies, Palestinian terrorists, Religious sites, Temple Mount
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UN Chief Guterres, the Media and Palestinian Fake News

September 1, 2017

UN Chief Guterres, the Media and Palestinian Fake News, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, September 1, 2107

(Please see also, INTO THE FRAY: The Taylor Force Act – Putting “Palestine” in perspective. — DM)

One of the mothers who attended the meeting with the UN chief was Latifa Abu Hmaid. Four of her sons, Nasser, Sharif, Nasr and Mohammed are serving multiple life sentences for their role in terrorism. The Palestinian Authority (PA) chose the mother of these terrorists because they are all members of President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, which is regularly described by Western media outlets as a moderate and pragmatic Palestinian party that believes in the two-state solution and peace with Israel.

The minimum the UN chief and his aides could have done is to call out the PA leadership and condemn it for the ambush and the fabricated report from the official Palestinian news agency. Had Israel been involved in a similar incident, we would have witnessed a diplomatic crisis, prompted by the UN secretary general and his spokesmen as well as the international media. Palestinians, as usual, are given a pass.

The lie about “Jewish extremists” setting fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque has become so widespread and accepted that even senior Muslim scholars such as Abbas’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, has also been spreading the blood libel. He and most Palestinians continue to describe the Australian Christian arsonist as a “Jewish extremist.”

According to the Palestinian propaganda machine, nearly without exception, the terrorists were on their way to buy bread for their mothers or visit their grandmothers. These were innocent victims, the story goes, arrested or shot by Israel for no reason. Then there are the lies about Israelis “planting” knives near the bodies of terrorists who stab or try to murder Jews. Western journalists and others accept these lies as facts.

Fake news is an old story in the Palestinian world. Yet recently, fake news has been taken to new heights by Palestinian spin-doctors, who have been working overtime to mislead the international community and media. A number of stories published in the past few days in the Palestinian media demonstrate the extent to which Palestinians are prepared to go to deceive the world and impact international public opinion.

Excellence is often a virtue — except when one excels at lying. And if there is one thing at which the Palestinians have excelled in the past few decades, it is spreading lies about its conflict with Israel. The mainstream media in the West usually takes the fake-news bait — it sells papers! — and demonstrates tolerance, if not sympathy, toward Palestinian-produced fake news fabrications.

The most recent case of Palestinian fake news emerged during United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s visit to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians. The UN chief, who does not seem to be familiar with the Palestinian culture of lies, fell victim to a typical PR stunt organized by his Palestinian hosts.

According to the Wafa news agency, the official organ of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Guterres “held a meeting on Tuesday evening (August 29) with families of Palestinian martyrs and prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.” The report said that the families called on the UN secretary-general to take rapid and serious action to save the lives of more than 6500 male and female prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Wafa then quoted Guterres as saying: “We understand the suffering of the Palestinian prisoners and we will work with the relevant parties to end their suffering.”

First, it ought to be of interest that the “prisoners” and “martyrs” are Palestinians who were involved, directly and indirectly, in terror attacks. Many of the prisoners have Jewish blood on their hands and were convicted of often unspeakable crimes.

Second, it quickly became clear that the meeting between the UN chief and the Palestinian families was part of an ambush set up by his Palestinian hosts in Ramallah. According to a UN spokesman, Guterres was surprised by the sudden request of the Palestinian Authority to meet with the “mothers of detained children” but that he agreed to meet with them. To his great credit, Guterres also issued a clarification that the report in Wafa that he had expressed sympathy for the prisoners’ plight was “fabricated.”

Third, it is worth noting that one of the mothers who attended the meeting with the UN chief was Latifa Abu Hmaid, from the Al-Ama’ri refugee camp near Ramallah. Four of her sons, Nasser, Sharif, Nasr and Mohammed are serving multiple life sentences for their role in terrorism. The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of these terrorists because they are all members of President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction, which is regularly described by Western media outlets as a moderate and pragmatic Palestinian party that believes in the two-state solution and peace with Israel.

The response of the UN chief’s spokesman to the “fabricated” report by Abbas’s Wafa news agency and the unscheduled meeting with the families of the “prisoners” and “martyrs” is a fine example of how the Palestinian Authority manipulates the world’s top diplomat. The PA and other Palestinians, however, have been getting away with this for decades.

The minimum the UN chief and his aides could have done is to call out the PA leadership and condemn it for the ambush and the fabricated report on the official Palestinian news agency. Had Israel been involved in a similar incident, we would have witnessed a diplomatic crisis, prompted by the UN secretary general and his spokesmen as well as the international media. Palestinians, as usual, are given a pass.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during his to Ramallah, August 29, 2017. (Image source: UN Photo/Ahed Izhiman)

In another example of Palestinian fake news designed to slander Israel and win international sympathy, several Palestinian media outlets have been reporting during the past week that an Israeli female undercover agent masquerading as a nurse has been uncovered in a Palestinian hospital in Hebron.

According to the fake reports, the “nurse” was an Israeli settler who had helped the Israel Defense Forces infiltrate the hospital to arrest and shoot Palestinian fugitives. A quick check of the facts revealed that the Palestinians were apparently referring to a Western volunteer who had worked in the hospital to treat Palestinian patients. The hospital administration has strongly denied the reports, which continue to spread like fire on social media and Palestinian news websites. The purpose of the fake reports is to implicate Israel and present it as a state that shows disregard for hospitals and patients. This case shows that rumors and fake news are regularly accepted as facts in the world of the Palestinians and Arabs.

Or consider another example of how the Palestinian propaganda machine operates. On August 23, the same Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported on the anniversary of the 1969 fire at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

First, the historical facts: On August 21, 1969, an Australian citizen named Denis Michael Rohan set fire to the pulpit of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Rohan was arrested for the arson attack, tried and found to be insane. He was hospitalized in a mental institution before finally being deported from Israel in 1974.

Since 1969, however, the Palestinians have repeated the lie that Israel and Jews were behind the arson attack. The fact that Rohan was a Christian is apparently inconsequential to them.

So this year, marking the anniversary of the arson, this is what Abbas’s official mouthpiece, Wafa, had this priceless piece of perjury to say: “The Al-Aqsa Mosque was torched by Jewish extremists in 1969.”

The lie about “Jewish extremists” setting fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque has become so widespread and accepted that even senior Muslim scholars such as Abbas’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, has also been spreading the blood libel. He and most Palestinians continue to describe the Australian Christian arsonist as a “Jewish extremist.”

These lies are simply a few recent examples that extend a long list of Palestinian fake news and blood libels aimed at framing Israel and inciting the world against it. Take for example, the famous Palestinian lies about terrorists: according to the Palestinian propaganda machine, nearly without exception, the terrorists were on their way to buy bread for their mothers or visit their grandmothers. These were innocent victims, the story goes, arrested or shot by Israel for no reason. Then there are the lies about Israelis “planting” knives near the bodies of terrorists who stab or try to murder Jews. Western journalists and others accept these lies as facts.

The manipulation of the UN chief in Ramallah comes as no surprise to those familiar with Palestinian tactics of deception. The question, however, remains: For how long will the international community receive with equanimity the lies that Palestinians spit in its face, lies that hour after hour, day after day, only endanger the lives of both Palestinians and Jews, promote an all-too-welcomed anti-Semitism, and worst – contrary to the claims of those who purport to want to help them — prolong the suffering of Palestinians who dream of one day living in freedom –like their neighbors, the Israelis — with institutions of democracy like free speech, an independent judiciary and educational system, and most of all, with accountable leadership?

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.

Categories: Faked news, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian lies, Palestinian media, Palestinian terror at Temple Mount, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media, UN and Israel, UN and Palestinians, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
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Metal Detectors and Palestinian Lies

July 22, 2017

Metal Detectors and Palestinian Lies, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, July 22, 2017

(Please see also, This is a war for sovereign control of Temple Mt. — DM)

This incitement began more than two years ago, when Palestinian and Waqf leaders started telling their people and the rest of the world that Israel was planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that Jews visiting the Temple Mount were “defiling with their filthy feet” an Islamic holy site. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was the first to pronounce this blood libel, which triggered a wave of knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis that continues to this day.

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The slain police officers were stationed there to ensure the safety of Muslim worshippers. The Palestinian spin doctors are attempting to divert attention from the terror attack by making it look as if the crisis began when Israel installed the metal detectors and not when two police officers were murdered.

First, the security measures, including the placement of the metal detectors, was not an Israeli initiative but came as a direct and necessary response to a specific terror attack. The Israeli government did not convene and take a decision to install the metal detectors in order to alter the status quo or stop Muslims from praying.

Second, it was the Palestinians who took the decision not to enter into the Temple Mount unless the metal detectors are removed. The Palestinians and the Waqf are lying to the world by telling it that Israel is denying Muslims access to their holy sites.

The Palestinian opposition to the metal detectors at the Temple Mount means one thing only: that the Palestinians are determined to turn the holy site into a weapons cache and use it as a launching pad to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. If the mosque were then actually destroyed in the process, guess who would be blamed? Possibly that is even the real agenda.

The controversy surrounding the Israeli authorities’ decision to place metal detectors at the gates of the Temple Mount calls to mind the famous Arab saying, “he beat me and cried then came to me to complain.” This inversion of reality is a common among perpetrators who pretend to be victims.

The decision to install the metal detectors came after Arab terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount on July 14. The three terrorists — Israeli Arab citizens from the city of Umm al-Fahm — used a submachine gun and knives to carry out their attack. The weapons were easily smuggled into the Temple Mount thanks to Muslim worshippers not having been required to pass through metal detectors or undergo body searches by policemen stationed at the gates.

Incredibly, the Palestinians have since been waging daily protests against the new Israeli security measures, demanding that the metal detectors be removed from the entrances to the Temple Mount. As part of the protests, Palestinian leaders have urged Muslim worshippers not to enter the Temple Mount through the metal detectors and instead to pray at the entrances to the holy site.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), Jordan and other Arab and Islamic countries are accusing Israel of violating the status quo at the Temple Mount by installing the metal detectors.

One listens in vain for a denouncement of the terrorists who murdered the two Israeli police officers — these are the people responsible for defiling the sanctity of the holy site.

We also hear no condemnation of the murder of the officers, who belong to the Druze community in Israel and who were entrusted with preserving law and order at the Temple Mount. The slain officers were stationed there to ensure the safety of Muslim worshippers.

On the contrary — many Palestinians and Arabs have applauded the terror attack as a “heroic operation” against the “Zionist enemy.” The three terrorists, who were killed by Israeli policemen during the attack, are being hailed as “martyrs” and “heroes” who sacrificed their lives in defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Sadly, many Israeli Arab leaders have refused to condemn the terror attack carried out by three of their fellow citizens.

The metal detectors have one goal: to prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons into the Temple Mount. That is the act that should be viewed as a desecration of a holy site.

Yet, rather than supporting the Israelis’ attempt to thwart bloodshed on this sacred soil, the Palestinians and other Arabs blame Israel for seeking to safeguard the well-being of all people — not least of all Muslim worshipers — through basic security measures.

The Palestinian spin doctors are attempting to divert attention from the terror attack by making it look as if the crisis began when Israel installed the metal detectors and not when two police officers were murdered.

The Palestinians and other Arabs are now crying to the international community that Israel is seeking to change the status quo at the Temple Mount through a series of security measures. They are also trying to make it look as if Israel is preventing Muslim worshippers from entering and praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The facts, however, tell a rather different story.

First, the security measures, including the placement of the metal detectors, was not an Israeli initiative but came as a direct and necessary response to a specific terror attack. The Israeli government did not convene and take a decision to install the metal detectors in order to alter the status quo or stop Muslims from praying.

Second, it was the Palestinians who took the decision not to enter into the Temple Mount unless the metal detectors are removed. Palestinian leaders and officials the Waqf (a religious trust that manages the Temple Mount compound) were the ones who urged Muslim worshippers to stay away from the Temple Mount and hold prayers in the streets and public squares in protest against the metal detectors. The Muslim worshippers prefer to pray in the streets and public squares rather than enter the Temple Mount through metal detectors. But now the Palestinians and the Waqf are lying to the world by telling it that Israel is denying Muslims access to their holy sites.

Approximately 4,000 Palestinian Muslims pray outside the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, on July 19, 2017, in protest at the installation of metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

The Palestinian propaganda machine is working overtime to market the false impression that the metal detectors are part of an Israeli scheme to spark a religious war with Muslims and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It appears, however, that quite the opposite is true. The incitement of Palestinian and Waqf officials suggests that it is they who are hell-bent on triggering a religious war with Israel and Jews.

This incitement began more than two years ago, when Palestinian and Waqf leaders started telling their people and the rest of the world that Israel was planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that Jews visiting the Temple Mount were “defiling with their filthy feet” an Islamic holy site. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was the first to pronounce this blood libel, which triggered a wave of knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis that continues to this day.

The three terrorists who carried out the July 14 attack were acting precisely in accordance with the instructions of Abbas and other Palestinian and Muslim leaders: that it is the duty of Muslims to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Jews. In that sense, this attack should be seen in the context of the ongoing wave of terror attacks against Israel that began in late 2015 and which is known as the “Knife Intifada.”

Since then, the Palestinians have been using visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as an excuse to launch terror attacks against Israel. Palestinian officials and media outlets continue to depict these peaceful visits as “violent raids by Jewish settler gangs into the Al-Aqsa Mosque.” The truth, however, is that no Jew has set foot inside the mosque. The visits are restricted to tours of the Temple Mount compound — something that non-Muslim tourists have been doing since 1968.

In reality, it is the Palestinians themselves who are desecrating the sanctity of the Temple Mount, using the site to launch violent attacks against Jews by hurling stones at Jews praying at the nearby Western Wall.

They have also been smuggling various types of weapons into the Temple Mount in order to throw firebombs and stones at Jewish visitors and policemen. The Palestinian leadership and Waqf officials have also encouraged Muslims to harass Jewish visitors and police officers by hurling insults at them.

Last year, the Palestinians thwarted a plan by Jordan to install dozens of security cameras at the Temple Mount. The cameras were supposed to refute or confirm Palestinian allegations that Israel was plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jordanians backed off from their plan after Palestinian intimidation, including the threat to destroy the cameras.

Why protest the plan? The Palestinians were afraid that their violence, harassment and amassing of weapons to attack Jewish visitors and police officers would be captured on camera.

Redux: Palestinian are twisting reality again, only this time with metal detectors. They are worried that the metal detectors will stop them from smuggling knives and firearms into the Temple Mount.

One wonders — if the draw of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is prayer, why worry about metal detectors? Thousands of Palestinians pass every day through metal detectors on their way into Israel, and all that happens is that they get to work. Similarly, Palestinians and Israelis alike pass every day through metal detectors at shopping malls and state institutions, such as the Post Office, the National Insurance Institute, hospitals and medical centers. Where is the outcry?

The Palestinian opposition to the metal detectors at the Temple Mount means one thing only: that the Palestinians are determined to turn the holy site into a weapons cache and use it as a launching pad to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. If the mosque were then actually destroyed in the process, guess who would be blamed? Possibly that is even the real agenda. Who among the international community would like to sign off on that?

Categories: Metal detectors, Palestinan terror at Temple Mount, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian lies, Palestinian rioters, Palestinians and Islam, Palestinians and Jews, Temple Mount terrorist attack, Waqf
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