Palestinian Denial of Religious Freedom

Palestinian Denial of Jewish Holy Sites

A recurring theme in the Palestinian press and television is the denial of Jewish rights to holy sites in the Holy Land. Unseen and unheard in the Western media - by choice or by ignorance - are the statements of senior Palestinian clerics and political leaders that deny any Jewish tie to the Patriarchs/Matriarchs, to their burial sites, or to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount. Denial of the ancient historical Jewish ties to the Land of Israel is an important weapon in the battle to delegitimize the Jewish State of Israel.

Palestinian mobs, led by Palestinian police, destroy Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. (AFP)

"As Palestinian troops stood by, some shooting in the air to express their own the joy, hundreds of Palestinian men set upon the shrine with pick axes and crowbars while black smoke billowed from the charred structure. Raising a Palestinian flag, the Palestinians said that they were destroying Joseph's Tomb to ensure that the Israelis never returned."

-- The New York Times, October 7, 2000, Barak Issues 48-Hour Ultimatum to Arafat By Deborah Sontag

"If the Jews really want peace, they must absolutely forget about having any rights over the Temple Mount or Al-Aksa Mosque... the Western Wall also belongs to Moslems, and was given to the Jews as a place of prayer only because the British asked and the Moslems agreed out of the goodness of their hearts. The Western Wall is just a fence belonging to a Moslem holy site... Why should we allow the Jews to share places which are holy to us and to Islam- ... for 600 years, the Moslems ruled the land, since the Caliph Omar, and only now have the Jews remembered to demand a right to the Temple Mount... For us, the Moslems, the place is holy and was always such. I heard that your Temple was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem."

Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, the official PA Mufti (senior Muslim cleric). (7)

"That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine."

Yasser Arafat (8)

"The archeology of Jerusalem is diverse - excavations in the Old City and the areas surrounding it revealed Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others, but nothing Jewish. Outside of what is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."

PA Information Ministry Press Release. (9)

"Be alert and treat Joseph's Tomb and Rachel's Tomb as parcels of Palestinian land which must be liberated, and treat Joseph and Rachel as two people who died, like anyone else."

excerpt from the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda. (10)

"The 'Al-Buraq' Wall [the Western Wall] is a part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jews have no relation to it, whether or not a decision to expropriate it was made."

PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri. (11)

"Muslim Palestine is one and cannot be divided. There is no difference between Haifa and Nablus, Lod and Ramallah, Jerusalem and Nazareth or Gaza and Ashkelon. Palestine is Wakf land (Muslim religious trust) that belongs to Muslims throughout the world and no one has the right to give it up or to forsake. Whoever does this is a traitor to the trust and is nothing but a criminal whose end shall be in hell."

Sheik Yusef Abu Sneina, Al Aksa mosque. (12)

"Abraham was neither Jewish nor a Hebrew, but was simply an Iraqi. The Jews have no right to claim part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Abraham's resting place, as a synagogue. Rather, the whole building should be a mosque."

Yasser Arafat. (13)

"The people of Israel realize perfectly well that they have no temples or ruins near Al Aksa Mosque. According to the Koran, the people of Israel lived somewhere to the west of Bethlehem...they were living in Bethlehem and not in Jerusalem."

Sheikh Ismail Jamal, the PLO's Director of the Islamic Wakf in Jericho (14)

"No stone of the Al-Buraq [Western] Wall has any relation to Judaism. The Jews began praying at this wall only in the 19th century, when they began to develop [national] aspirations."

PA Mufti Sheikh 'Ikrima Sabri (15)

"We the Palestinian nation, our fate from Allah is to be the edge of the sword in the war against the Jews until the resurrection of the dead, as the prophet Muhammad said: 'the resurrection of the dead will not arrive until you will fight the Jews and kill them.' We the Palestinians are the edge of the sword in this issue and in this campaign, whether or not we want this. All of the agreements being agreed are temporary."

Dr. Ahmed Yusuf Abu Halabiya (16)

Dr. Ahmed Yusuf Abu Halabiya (17)

"... In Camp David (July 2000) ... the Israelis and Americans were releasing test- balloons regarding solutions to the Jerusalem issues ... they focused on the Armenian quarter, assuming that [the annexation to Israel of] the Jewish quarter was a given. We categorically rejected all of these proposals, but we agreed that they could pray next to the [Wailing] Wall, without acknowledging any Israeli sovereignty over it. We relied on the resolution of Britain's 1929 Shaw Commission. The Commission acknowledged that the Wall belongs to the Muslim Waqf, while the Jews are allowed to pray by it as long as they do not use a Shofar."

Abu Mazen, Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee (18)

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