I have just finished reading Abraham Miller’s piece on the role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, in the Holocaust. While not an architect of the Holocaust, he certainly played his part.
Miller’s article made me think of Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the current Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who claimed over the weekend there was never a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount and that the only thing that exists there is the Aksa mosque.
Of course, this is nothing new. If you truly want to understand the Palestinian mindset, if not much of the mindset of the Arab & Muslim world then one must be aware of their efforts to deny any connection between Jews and Jerusalem. In fact, in December 1997, the Palestinian Ministry of Information explicitly stated, “Jews never had any connection to Jerusalem.” In April 2002, former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross told Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday that the late Yasser Arafat had denied there was ever a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount and said that it was in Nablus. Ross said that Arafat was “denying the core of the Jewish faith.”
Keep in mind that Palestinian youth are indoctrinated with these beliefs. Back in 2007, I saw the Palestinian propaganda film Jenin, Jenin at the inaugural Boston Palestine Film Festival. I wrote about it, but unfortunately the link to the article is dead. In any case, you might recall that in April 2002 Palestinians claimed that the IDF had massacred 500 Palestinians when in fact there was no massacre of civilians. But since when have the Palestinians let the truth get in the way of their narrative? What I remember most about this piece of propaganda was an interview with a 12-year old Palestinian girl who said it was time to put an end about Jewish fantasies of Jerusalem. She spoke very big words for such a small girl.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are in no position to demand concessions of Israel when the Palestinians believe to their very core that Jews never prayed at The Temple much less set foot there. How can Israel be expected to make peace with a people who are not amenable to reason or facts?
