Senior Palestinian Authority ministers and clerics have hardened their positions on the Western Wall, which they call the Muslim Al-Burqa wall, and are making it clear that Jews would not be allowed there under a Palestinian state.
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) once again has translated and published official Palestinian Authority hatred of Jews and denial of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash and the former Chief Justice of the PA’s Religious Court both recently declared that the PA’s Islamic belief and political position is that Jews are prohibited from praying at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.
The PA claims that the area of the Muslim holy site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, includes not only the mosque itself, but extends over the entire Temple Mount and includes the Western Wall.
PMW has found a statement made in an Arab-language newspaper by Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi, former Chief Justice of the PA’s Religious Court, who said, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque includes all its courtyards, foundations, skies, gates, domes, walls, and specifically, its western wall (Al-Buraq Wall), [parentheses in source], which is, after all, a part of it…”
PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, quoted on official Palestinian Authority television late last year, said, “Jerusalem is religion’s trust and history’s trust in the hands of all Muslims, in the hands of this Ummah (Islamic Nation)… The Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall of the Temple Mount) is an authentic part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque only.”
To use an expression repeated often by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a trained ape could see the obvious pattern developed by the Palestinian Authority.
When it says it wants to create a future state on the Temporary Armistice Lines declared in 1949, it means more than that. It wants to duplicate Jordan’s policy at the time of barring Jews from the Western Wall and any other holy sites throughout Judea and Samaria.
Sheikh, Al-Tamimi, the former Chief Justice of PA Religious Court, stated in the Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida newspaper in February, “Allah decreed that the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is Islamic and belongs to Muslims alone… It is part of the religious belief of a billion and a half Muslims, and the Jews have no right to it. No party, no matter how much power and international support it has, can change this established fact by giving the Jews any right to it, or the right to pray in any part of it. The Al-Aqsa Mosque includes all its courtyards… and specifically, its western wall.”
Al-Habbash, the Minister of Religious Affairs, pointed out that no one, God forbid, should think that he would keep Jews from visiting holy sites. “Freedom of worship in our Jerusalem is guaranteed to all,” but then he added the clincher that “nonetheless, we have rights, principles and positions that cannot possibly be altered.”
He would not harm the rights of others, and the good Muslim cleric is so learned he knows what sites are Jewish. Since the Western Wall is not one of them, there is no reason for Jews to be allowed to desecrate the Wall by even coming near it.
In any future Palestinian Authority state established according to the wishes of Mahmoud Abbas, Kerry, with his brilliant diplomatic skills, could broker a deal by which Jews would be allowed to pray at a replica of the Western Wall to be built outside the State Dept.
Below is a video of Abbas, as far back as three years ago, categorically stating to the Arab League that Muslims must “save” Jerusalem from the Jews.
Isn’t funny that no one says the Jews must save Jerusalem from the Muslims?