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Palestinian Leaders Set to Torpedo Peace Moves

(Las Vegas Sun) Abraham Cooper and Yitzchok Adlerstein - Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA's Ministry of Information, wrote recently that "there is no archeological evidence that the Temple Mount was built during the period of King Solomon....One can only conclude that Al-Buraq Wall is a Muslim wall and an integral part of the Aksa Mosque....This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it." Here are the facts: In the 4th century, Christian works described the site as holy to the Jews, and the place to which they came (when allowed) to mourn the two Temples that had stood there. A synagogue stood on the site shortly before the Crusaders arrived. Suleiman the Magnificent granted Jews the right to worship there in the 16th century. From 1924 until 1953, the Supreme Muslim Council annually published "A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif," an English-language guide to the Temple Mount. It states on the opening page: "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute." While Arabs lived in the Holy Land for centuries, they did so without a distinct sense of peoplehood. The Palestinian identity is a creation of the last decades. Their "George Washington," Yasser Arafat, died in 2004. Tragically, some Palestinian elites have decided that a key element of building their peoplehood is by denying their neighbor's core value: the Jews' sense of history and their continuous presence in the Holy Land for 3,000 years. The serial denial of the Jewish people's history by Palestinian leaders makes a mockery of the good faith efforts of all who seek peace. A neighbor who denies your past cannot be trusted to respect you in the future. Rabbi Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Adlerstein is director of Interfaith Relations for the Center.
2010-12-14 09:20:45
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