PA tells Palestinians: The Western Wall belongs only to Muslims
An official from Fatah called upon Palestinians to defend the site with their lives.
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSA general view of Jerusalem's Old City shows the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in the foreground and the Dome of the Rock, located on the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in the background June 24, 2019(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
The Western Wall belongs only to Muslims and must be defended even to the death, Palestinians living in the West Bank were told during a filler piece between programs on official Palestinian Authority TV and in a news article in the official PA newspaper. In a short video broadcast on November 29, an official PA TV narrator told viewers: "The historical documents in the possession of the Palestinians of Jerusalem testify that Jerusalem is a city of Arab origin for thousands of years, and its history and culture are Islamic. Since Islam's conquest [in the 7th century], the al-Buraq Wall [the Western Wall] has remained an Islamic waqf [an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law]. The Muslims have the absolute right to it and there is not even one rock there that dates back to the period of King Solomon, as the Jews claim.”The voice over was set to images of daily life within Jerusalem's Old City, and of the Western Wall, which is part of Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount. The wall is a remnant of a large retaining wall built by King Herod to support the mount for the Second Temple; no part of Solomon's First Temple remains, although artifacts from that period have been found in the area.According to Palestinian Media Watch, a research institute that studies the PA's messages to its people, the Western Wall is referred to by Muslims as al-Buraq, because the prophet Mohammed is said to have traveled to al-Aqsa mosque and tied his flying horse, named al-Buraq, to a stone or rock. In the 1920s, Arab Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini identified that rock as the Western Wall, and Muslims adopted the name for it.The claim to ownership of the site was broadcast again a month later on December 30, this time in a program titled Reporters in the Field. The program featured the director of the Land Research Center, Jamal al-Amleh, who said: “It is known that [the Jews] have nothing in Jerusalem and Hebron. All archaeological excavations – even the Jewish archaeologists themselves – have proven that there is no existence of their state in this country, no existence of the Temple on the mountain where al-Aqsa Mosque is built. All of their history and narrative is a false narrative.”The Land Research Center received funding from the EU’s Peacebuilding Initiative Program from 2016-2019, according to NGO Monitor.The claim that Jewish links to the Land of Israel are "false" is often repeated on PA TV. Numerous examples exist of academics and officials denying archaeological evidence of a Jewish presence in the land for millennia. Rather, Palestinians are told that the Jews arrived in Israel as invaders 70 years ago.This claim allows the Palestinian Authority to push the narrative that the Temple Mount is only holy to Muslims, and must be defended, even with their lives.On January 18, the official PA daily newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida carried a report that Fatah spokesman Iyad Nasr had said the movement will defend al-Aqsa "whatever the cost."
Under the headline "Fatah and the [PA] Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the occupation's invasion of al-Aqsa Mosque," the paper wrote: "The Fatah Movement emphasized that the Israeli occupation forces' invasion of the Aqsa Mosque yesterday, Friday [Jan. 17], in the early morning is an obvious violation of the Islamic holy sites, under clear American cover and with no deterrent."[Fatah] Movement spokesman Iyad Nasr noted yesterday, Friday, that this is a real war and ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people, its land, and its holy sites," the article said. "However, [the war] will not succeed in stealing from our people its will to remain and its standing firm on its land.' He added: 'We will defend our al-Aqsa Mosque and our holy sites, and we will not allow them [Israel] to violate them and pass the occupation's plots that strive to divide the holy city [Jerusalem] by areas, and times – whatever the cost may be.’"Palestinian Media Watch explained that the reference to dividing Jerusalem "by times" referred to a law proposed by the Knesset in 2013 which would allow both Jews and Muslims to pray at Temple Mount at different times. Jews are currently allowed access to the site, but are not allowed to pray there. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated repeatedly that his government has no intention of changing the current arrangements. The proposed law does not reference any other part of Jerusalem.Friday prayers were broken up by Israel Police at al-Aqsa on January 17 after a preacher told several hundred worshipers that Jerusalem would soon be the capital of an Islamic caliphate, and the crowd began to chant nationalistic slogans and cause disturbances.
