The Lies of Muslim Revisionist History

"The world must be mobilized against all these Israeli attempts to change the symbols and signs of Jerusalem," he said. "There is nothing Jewish about the Al Aqsa Mosque. There was no so-called Jewish Temple. It's imaginary. Jerusalem is 100 percent Muslim."

There has also been destruction at the level of ideas. As Mr. Gold shows, Muslim and Arab leaders in the past recognized that Jerusalem was the location of Solomon's Temple, but today it has become official policy, taught in schools and backed with pseudo research, that the most sacred place in the Jewish imagination — the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon and maintained on and off for nearly 1,000 years — never existed. Echoing the Holocaust denial of their Iranian contemporaries, Palestinian leaders, writers, and scholars have embarked on a campaign of intellectual erasure, which Mr. Gold calls "Temple Denial," aimed at undermining the Jewish claim to any part of the land.

7 And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. 9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

1 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ 3 Therefore understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.
4 “Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. (Deut. 9: 1-6)

"Jerusalem is the religious, political and spiritual capital of Palestine - the Jews have no right to it."

[Dr. Tayseer Al-Tamimi, PA Chief Justice of religious court]

• Denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and even of the existence of Solomon's Temple;

• Hate libels: Israel plans destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Judaization of Jerusalem; PA alarmist campaign to promote fear and hate;

• Jerusalem and all of Israel are defined as "Ribat" - holy Islamic land - whose "liberation" and defense are mandatory by Islam.

"The archaeological treasures in Jerusalem emphasize the depth of the city's heritage and history; they emphasize its Arabness and refute the Israeli claims that it is a Jewish city... It is known that perhaps under every stone and in every corner, on every street and at every turn in Jerusalem there are relics. These relics say, 'We are Arab, we are Muslim, we are Christian."

[Dr. Marwan Abu-Khalaf, director of the Archaeological Institute at Al-Quds University - PA TV, Feb. 27, 2009]

"They [the Jews] base themselves on myths and invoke the Jewish religion and Jewish faith, despite the fact that the truly religious Jews truly believe - and they have stated this on more than one occasion - that the Temple was never in the Holy City [Jerusalem], and was absolutely never on the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, PA Minister of Agriculture and Welfare - PA TV, April 16, 2009]

"They have wept tears and cried over the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque out of an illusion and forgery that it is a relic of the wall of the alleged Temple... They place notes between the stones and dream of the day when they will approach closer, into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and plan to build the alleged Temple."

[PA TV: "Synagogues Encircling Al-Aqsa" - May 1, 2009]

[Dr. Hasan Sun'-Allah, a scholar at the Center of Modern Research] "criticized the use of the term 'Wailing Wall' instead of 'Western Wall' [of Al-Aqsa], and stated that the occupation falsifies the facts, and has no rights over the walls of Al-Aqsa mosque, to use them as a site for mourning." [Al-Ayyam, April 28, 2009]

"Jerusalem is the religious, political and spiritual capital of Palestine - the Jews have no rights to it."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 2, 2009]

"We do not agree with the biblical version, according to which [Jerusalem] was a mighty kingdom, or the capital of a mighty kingdom. No palace has been discovered, nor have any remnants of the First Temple - built in Solomon's time - been found, testifying to this greatness... The Hebrews arrived in Jerusalem during the first millennium B.C.E., but their rule in Jerusalem lasted only for a short time... To date one cannot point to any element in Jerusalem that is related, historically speaking, to that period, or any element that is historically related to the Hebrew culture."

[Nazmi Al-Ju'ba, lecturer in history at Bir Zeit University - PATV, Feb. 27, 2009]

"It [Jerusalem] is the meeting point of a number of archaeological sites, by means of which the Israeli establishment is trying to raise an imaginary Hebrew history."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 4, 2009]

"[Dr. Yunes Amr, President of the Al-Quds Open University,] who authored a book entitled, 'Jerusalem - City of Allah', has reviewed the Israeli claims concerning the history of the Jewish presence in Palestine and in Jerusalem, and has disproved them historically and linguistically, [exposing] their falsification of the facts. He pointed out the inaccuracy of the widespread view that the Palestinians originated with a group of people who emigrated from the Greek [Isles] and settled in Palestine, affirming instead that the Palestinians are Arab Canaanites indigenous to this land." [Al-Ayyam, April 7, 2009]

"They dug the Western Wall tunnel... and at the heart of the tunnel they inaugurated a new synagogue, the closest - according to their illusion - to the Holy of Holies of the alleged Temple."

[PA TV: "Synagogues Encircle Al-Aqsa" - May 1, 2009]

"Israel seeks to create religious and historical legitimacy for itself in Jerusalem and to justify its acts of judaization, with a clear distortion of history."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 14, 2009]

"There are [Israeli] plans to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque both directly and indirectly. For instance, use of explosives, aerial or long-distance bombing, digging at the foundations and the walls of the mosque. By means of the tunnels they are trying to cause a natural earthquake."

[PA TV, March 2, 2009]

"Nation of Islam: Awaken! The Al-Aqsa mosque is being threatened, a tunnel is being dug underneath, the so-called 'Temple' is being renewed."

[PA TV clip broadcast repeatedly in 2009, recently on April 24, 2009]

"The occupation government is determined to erase the Arab and Islamic characteristics of the Holy City and to carry out a criminal cultural massacre against the city's human and cultural heritage."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 17, 2009]

"This occupation [Israel], which is robbing us of our geography, robbing us of our history, and robbing us of our heritage, is trying to Judaize our city [Jerusalem]."

[Friday sermon, PA TV, April 10, 2009]

"The number of Israeli tunnels and their scope is growing daily under the Al-Aqsa mosque and in its environs and... the constant breakdowns of the roads and the walls emphasize that [Al-Aqsa] is subject to a plot that threatens its structure and its identity, with the aim of destroying it and establishing on its ruins the alleged Jewish Temple."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 3, 2009]

"The Israeli leadership is hastening its steps to Judaize Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Palestinian state, with the aim of abolishing the city's Arab identity and changing its characteristic landmarks."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 24, 2009]

"The Popular Fighting Front in the Jerusalem region emphasized that the plans of the occupation government, which aspires to double the number of settlers in Jerusalem and in the West Bank... This is one of the fruits of the new fanaticism, racism and Nazism."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 4, 2009]

"When we look at the Palestinian map these days, we cannot avoid turning our gaze directly towards Jerusalem and the suffering that this city is experiencing: the attempts at Judaization, with the aim of blurring its characteristics, changing its identity."

[Friday sermon, PATV Feb. 20, 2009]

[In his lecture, Dr. Yunes Amr, president of Al-Quds University] "addressed the subject of 'Jerusalem, capital of Arab culture', the characteristics of the Jews - their lies and their sadism."

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 25, 2009]

"It is possible that there will be an artificial earthquake. Some time ago the Israelis had the idea of carrying out a nuclear test in the Dead Sea. That would be an artificial earthquake [that would bring about the collapse of the Al-Aqsa mosque]."

[PATV, Feb. 27, 2009]

"The Ribat for Allah is one of the actions related to Jihad ...The persistence of Palestine's people on their land in these days [i.e., Israel], and their persistence against the damage and the aggression they endure - is one of the greatest of the Ribat [fighting for Islamic land], and they are worthy of a great reward from Allah.... they are found in Ribat until Resurrection."

[Islamic Education, grade 12, p. 86-87]

"Ribat unites us as Muslims and as Palestinian Arabs with Jerusalem, and with its holy [places] and with the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is ongoing Ribat which cannot be halted even for a second."

[Sheikh Raed Salah, head of branch of The Islamic Movement - Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 25, 2009]

"The purpose of the festival is for our children to depict the suffering of the Al-Aqsa mosque... In addition, this activity is an activity of Ribat and protection of the Al-Aqsa mosque, in the shadow of the campaign of Judaization and the invasion of the Al-Aqsa mosque that are being undertaken by Jewish associations and organizations."

["First Drawing Competition of Lovers of Al-Aqsa" - Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 21, 2009]

"Our fundamental task - and this must be clear to all - is the continuation of Ribat upon the land of Jerusalem, upon the land of Palestine; a continuation of Ribat, striking roots in this land."

[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, former PA Minister of Agriculture and Welfare - PA TV, April 16, 2009]

"This nation is a nation of Murabitun [Ribat people], whose fundamental obligation is to protect the [land of] Ribat [i.e., land of Israel]."

[Friday sermon, PATV, March 3, 2009]

"The Al-Aqsa mosque has been placed at the center of the Israeli target, with all its plazas and domes and walls. The names and the sites have been falsified, such that the 'Al-Burak [western] Wall' has forcibly and falsely become the 'Wall of Tears' [Wailing Wall], and the Al-Aqsa plazas have become a pilgrimage site for tourists. Under it there is an empty space, and above it an empty space, and a voice is heard there - the voice of the Murabitin [Ribat people] who hold onto it day and night, to protect it."

["First Drawing Competition of Lovers of Al-Aqsa" - Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 21, 2009