Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to demonize Jews and disseminate vile, anti-Jewish propaganda. The official PA news agency in recent days attacked the idea of a Jewish state as a danger to the whole world.  A prominent PA academic, Shamekh Alawneh, denied in a PA TV interview the existence of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

“The Jewish State, or People, or Land is a synonym of the black nightmare of Racism. It is a war waged on us; a new war aimed at eradicating Palestinians, with slogans first, then by practice. Such a practice is the most dangerous in this land’s history; Exile, or ‘Transfer’ and eliminating everything related to the Arabism of this homeland, which has witnessed years of organized transfer of its people. Are we now witnessing our complete, final expulsion?

“The Jewish State is clear in its objectives, even implementation and application. It means eliminating 20 per cent of the Jewish entity’s citizens; Arabs and Palestinians. It probably means forcing them out; transferring them…

“Those who are calling for the Jewishness of ‘the State’ are performing a political act… whose fundamental aim is the complete closure of the right of return [ the Palestinian demand for the absorption by Israel of the Palestinian refugees of the 1948-9 war and their millions of descendants, which would turn Jews into a minority in their own country and produce an Arab-dominated state]. And it is not only the right of return that is being rejected here: Also prohibited is the remaining of the Palestinians who are upon their lands and forbidden houses in the Galilee and in the Triangle and in the Negev and in Jerusalem, as a ‘first stage,’ and in every place where there are Palestinians…

“A Jewish state endangers not only Palestinians, but also the Arab World, and the global security. It is a call for legitimizing a racist entity, built on pure ethnic and theocratic criteria. They apparently think that they are a race, and they want a racist state! All of this doesn’t end with the Palestinian issue; it becomes a general [international] matter, which raises the question:

“Will the present international system, with its modernity and development, and after banishing the racist entities, allow the development of a theocratic regime, successor of racist regimes that have disappeared, where anyone who does not recognize it cannot live there?” (WAFA News Agency, July 27, 2009, translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, ‘A Jewish state threatens all humanity: Official PA news agency,’ August 10, 2009).

Also, Shamekh Alawneh, a prominent lecturer in modern history at Al-Quds Open University, restated the often heard Palestinian denial of the Jewish people’s connection to the Western Wall, the remains of the outer retaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple. In an interview on PA-TV’s program, ‘Jerusalem – History and Culture,’ in which the moderator referred to ‘Judaization’ of Jerusalem and alleged Jewish plots to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop Temple Mount, Alawneh said that the Jews invented the connection to the Wall for political purposes, to convince European Jews and Zionists to come to country:

Shamekh Alawneh: “The [Jews’] goal in giving the name ‘Wailing Wall’ to this [Western] Wall is political. . . The Jewish Zionists had no choice but to invent an excuse [about Jerusalem] to spread among the Zionists or the Jews in Europe, to connect to something concrete from the past about Jerusalem. They made false claims and called the ‘Al-Burak Wall’ the ‘Wailing Wall.’”

Interviewer: “Can we understand that this term [the ‘Wailing Wall’] and this strange [Jewish] interest concerning this place are new, with no historical roots?”

Alawneh: “Absolutely. It has no historical roots. This is political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!” (PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 11, 2009, translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch bulletin, ‘No Jewish connection to Western Wall: PA academic,’ August 19, 2009).

Some previous PA denials of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem:

·        Adnan Husseini, advisor to PA president Mamhoud Abbas: Stated that Palestinian demands for Israel to cede eastern Jerusalem under any peace accord also includes the Western Wall. ‘“This is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control,” Husseini told Israel’s NRG Web site, adding that all of Jerusalem’s Old City should be part of a future Palestinian state’ (‘Abbas aide: Western Wall is ours,’ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 11, 2007).

·        PA official website: stated about the Western Wall that “Some Orthodox religious Jews consider it as a holy place for them, and claim that the wall is part of their temple which all historic studies and archeological excavations have failed to find any proof for such a claim” (PA website, 2001, once available at http://www.pna.org/mininfo/j_ourcap/sites.htm).

·        PA’s Voice of Palestine radio: Demanded that Israeli politicians not be allowed even to touch the wall. (Voice of Palestine, February 23, 2001).

·        PA Mufti of Jerusalem Ikrima Sabri: The Western Wall as “just a fence belonging to the Muslim holy site … There is not a single stone in the Wailing-Wall relating to Jewish history … [responding to an Israeli interviewer] I heard that your Temple was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem” (Makor Rishon, May 22, 1998; Die Welt, January 17, 2001).

• Jarid al-Kidwa, a Palestinian ‘historian’ broadcast in the PA media: “The stories of the Torah and the Bible did not take place in the Land of Israel – they occurred in the Arabian peninsula, primarily in Yemen” (Ha’aretz, July 6, 1997).

·        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” (IMRA news agency, December 25, 1996).

·        PA president Yasser Arafat: “That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Moslem shrine” (Ma’ariv, October 11, 1996).

ZOA National Executive Director Gary Ratner said, “In recent days, Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, reaffirmed Fatah’s refusal to accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state; glorified terrorists and the “armed struggle,” insisted on the so-called ‘right of return,’ and rejected an end of claims in any future peace agreement with Israel. It is therefore, little surprise that the PA actively disseminates vicious propaganda against Jews, denies the historical and religious connection of Jews to Jerusalem and its Jewish holy places, and calls the very idea of a Jewish state a threat to world peace.

“If the PA denies the Jewish connection to foundational aspects of Judaism and Jewish history, presents Jewish peoplehood as a fraud and describes Jewish independent sovereign existence a threat to whole world, then it is clear that the PA and Fatah are not genuine negotiating partners who will make peace. It is past time for the world to recognize this and cease all rewards and concessions to the PA until and unless it fulfills its Oslo commitments to end terrorism and the incitement to hatred and recognize Israel’s permanence and legitimacy as a Jewish state. Anything less will confound any prospect of peace and prolong the conflict.”