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Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6469
The Battle over the Temple Mount
(Israel Hayom) Nadav Shragai - The Jewish festival of Hannukah, which began Wednesday evening, commemorates the return of the Maccabees to the Temple Mount some 2,150 years ago to resume divine service in the Jewish Temple. For more than a generation, the Palestinians have been systematically working to deny the existence of the Jewish Temple. Their stubborn refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state is related to that denial. Senior PLO officials Nabil Shaath, Saeb Erekat, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, as well as PA President Mahmoud Abbas, all question the very existence of the Jewish Temple at the Temple Mount. They attempt to paint Jewish claims as imaginary, while at the same time trying to destroy archeological evidence that threatened to invalidate their lies. The destruction of the First Jewish Temple by Nebuchadnezzar is a firmly established motif in Islamic literature, according to the writings of Arab historian Al-Muqaddasi from the 10th century, the poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi in the 13th century, and Iranian legal scholar Al-Mastufi in the 14th century. In the mid-20th century, Palestinian historian and East Jerusalem Mayor Aref al-Aref wrote that the Temple Mount is located at Mount Moriah, which King David purchased for building the Temple, eventually built by Solomon in 1007 BCE. First century Roman Jewish scholar Josephus saw the Temple with his own eyes and documented its destruction.