Wrote PhD thesis & book denying Holocaust
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s Mahmoud Abbas as anti-Semitic for officially endorsing an absurd study with the preposterous theme that Jews have no claim of any kind to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the only remnant of the outer retaining wall of the biblical Jewish temples which, other than Temple Mount itself, is Judaism’s holiest site. According to the “study” carried out by Al-Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA Information Ministry, the Western Wall belongs to Muslims and is an integral part of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif (the Islamic term for the Temple Mount complex, meaning the Noble Sanctuary). The PA’s Ministry of Information has posted the findings of the “study” on its official Web site.
The new PA document claims that the Western Wall, or Al-Buraq Wall, as it is known to Muslims, constitutes Waqf property owned by an Algerian- Moroccan Muslim family. According to the “study,” “The Zionist occupation falsely and unjustly claims that it owns this wall, which it calls the Western Wall or Kotel … Al-Buraq Wall is in fact the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque … This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it and weep over its destruction …During the British mandate in Palestine, the number of Jews who visited the wall increased to a point where the Muslims felt threatened, and then there was the Al-Buraq Revolution on August 23, 1929, where dozens of Muslims were martyred and a large number of Jews were killed … no Muslim or Arab or Palestinian had the right to give up one stone of Al-Buraq Wall or other religious sites” (Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Jews have no right to Western Wall, PA “study” says,’ Jerusalem Post, November 22, 2010).
[Ed. The 1929 “revolution” was a series of vicious massacres of over 200 innocent, defenseless Jews, brought about by Haj Amin el Husseini and the Palestinian leadership, who publicized fabricated stories and rumors that Muslims and Muslim shrines, including the al Aqsa mosque, had been attacked, or were going to be destroyed, by Jews. There were no Jewish attacks on Muslims. All Muslims killed were at the hands of British forces, which belatedly intervened to restore order].
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev called on the Palestinian leadership to publicly disassociate itself from the PA “study,” saying, “If you deny the Jewish connection to the Western Wall you are in fact denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the land of Israel itself … [this type of statement is to be expected from] Ahmadinejad’s Iran, Hizballah or Hamas, but to deny the Jewish connection to the Western Wall is something that we wouldn’t expect from a partner in peace, and I call upon the Palestinian leadership, President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, to publicly disassociate themselves from it”
Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely warned that Taha’s study could be endorsed by UNESCO, which recently declared that Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem was a Muslim holy site and not a Jewish one (‘PA endorses “study” claiming Jews have no claim to Kotel,’ Jerusalem Post, November 23, 2010).
PA officials have a long history of denying Jewish rights and connection to Jerusalem and Israel:
· Tayseer Tamimi, PA chief religious official: “I know of Muslim and Christian holy sites in [Jerusalem]. I don’t know of any Jewish holy sites in it… Israel has been excavating since 1967 in search of remains of their Temple or their fictitious Jewish history” (PA TV, June 9, 2009).
· Adnan Husseini, advisor to PA president Mamhoud Abbas: “[The Western Wall] is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 11, 2007).
· Jarar al Qidwa, former advisor to PA leader Yasser Arafat: “Solomon’s Temple, I believe, was built by the Canaanites who were the neighbors of … the Israelites… In any case, when our nation or our Canaanite forefathers came to Palestine, they built the Temple … The issue of the temple is a Zionist innovation” (PA TV, Aug. 2, 2004).
· Yasser Arafat, PA president: “[The Israelis] found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod” (Al-Hayat [London], Oct. 5, 2002).
· ’Ikrima Sabri, PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem: “There is not [even] the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish Temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history” (Die Welt, January 17, 2001).
· Sheikh Muhammad Husayn, Director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque: “This is a place for Muslims, only Muslims. There is no temple here, only Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock” (New York Times, October 27, 1996).
- Walid M. Awad, Director of Foreign Publications for the PLO’s Palestine Ministry of Information: “Jerusalem was never a Jewish city” (Independent Media Review Analysis, December 25, 1996).
- PA president Yasser Arafat: “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine” (Maariv, October 11, 1996).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Like so many other cases of blatant Palestinian historical falsification and denial of Jewish history and rights, this little-reported episode sheds additional and important light on the Palestinian eliminationist ideology, which demands that the truth of Jewish history be utterly erased from the biblical land of Israel, in order to further demonize Israel as illegal interlopers. It is nothing less than Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism. Mahmoud Abbas himself is the author of a PhD thesis and book of Holocaust denial.
“The PA does not spread lies about Jews and Jewish history because they are misinformed, or because they seek a state, or because they don’t want Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. It spreads lies about Jews and Jewish history because of Jew-hatred. Because they hate Jews, they refuse to acknowledge Jewish rights and history and lie about it constantly. They oppose anything that indicates that Jews have a history and right to their biblical home. That is why, earlier this year, the Palestinian International Festival was so anxious that Boney M not perform ‘Rivers of Babylon,’ despite the enormous world-wide popularity of the song.
“The Palestinian Authority seeks to obliterate every indication or affirmation of the Jewish people’s connection and right to its own biblical homeland, knowing that Jewish history validates the rights of the Jews to their own country in the eyes of much of the world and perhaps even in the eyes of many Palestinians.
“Thus, while speaking to Western audiences, Mahmoud Abbas and Salaam Fayyad might rarely – and only rarely – go through the motions of claiming to acknowledge the rights of Jews to live in Israel within the pre-1967 borders or in a future Palestinian state – they have pointedly refused ever to accept Israel as a Jewish state and daily tell their people that Jews are usurpers. Furthermore, their own senior colleagues sometimes reveal the truth, like Saeb Erakat, who said last year that “nobody should agree to Israeli settlers remaining in the Palestinian [state].”
“It is unlikely that the Arab and Muslim worlds will accept Israel’s right to exist as Jewish state for many years, perhaps generations, perhaps ever. But if and when change comes, it will at least in large part start with Palestinians genuinely accept Israel’s legitimacy and ceasing to take refuge in a falsified, counterfeit history that eliminates the Jewish people from the picture. That is why it is vital that the U.S. and Israel both insist on an end to this Palestinian propaganda of denial and falsification and make further aid and negotiations to the PA conditional on its termination. To do otherwise is to ensure the prolongation of the Arab war on Israel. The Obama Administration and Israel should demand that the PA to repudiate this absurd, pernicious study before engaging in further talks with it.”