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Source: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/a-campaign-of-denial-to-disinherit-the-jews-1.122134
A Campaign of Denial to Disinherit the Jews
(Ha'aretz) Nadav Shragai - The claim that the Jews have no real connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites has been adopted by the Palestinian leadership and has become entrenched in Arab and Muslim communities. According to a study by Dr. Yitzhak Reiter, conducted for the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, in the last generation, the history of Jerusalem has gradually been rewritten. At the heart of this new version is the argument that Arabs ruled Jerusalem thousands of years before the children of Israel. Palestinian archaeologists identify the Jebusites as an ancient Arab tribe that wandered in from the Arabian Peninsula around 3000 BCE. The most jarring element of the new history is the claim that the First and Second Temples are lies fabricated by the Jews. As a result, today, more than in the past, Jerusalem has become a pan-Muslim Arab issue and any Arab negotiator seeking to work out an arrangement for the holy sites is constrained by the Islamic religious world.