One of the leading pro-Israel non-governmental organizations is denouncing acting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for his incendiary incitement against the Jewish people’s rights to their own religious sites. That NGO is urging the U.S., the EU and interfaith leaders to join it in the denunciation before Abbas’s false claims lead to further violence.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced what it called Mahmoud Abbas’s “assault on the religious freedom of the Jewish people” for stating that Jews visiting Jerusalem’s Temple Mount are desecrating the Al Aqsa Mosque.

“Mr. Abbas sounds no different than Hamas when he labels Jews visiting the Temple Mount—Judaism’s holiest site—a ‘desecration’ and calls upon Muslims to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque against a non-existent threat,” charged Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, founder and dean and associate Dean of the major international Jewish human rights group.

The NGO asserts that the action of the PA’s acting leader is consistent with Palestinian leadership’s efforts to deny the Jewish people’s historic connection to the Holy Land.

One example they gave was the PA’s effort to rebrand Rachel’s Tomb, which is  the burial place of the matriarch of the Jewish nation, as a mosque. Another example the SWC offered is the repeated attempts of the Palestinian Arabs to torch Joseph’s Tomb, located near Nablus, and having made it virtually impossible for Jews to worship there safely. A third example is the repeated denial by Palestinian Arab leaders that King Solomon’s Temple stood atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The leadership of the SWC castigated the PA leadership both for trying to disassociate the Jewish connection to the Holy Land and for fomenting hatred amongst their people against the Jews by pretending that Jews are trying to destroy what the Muslims have been taught are their own religious sites.

The SWC explained Abbas’s “outrageous campaign”is a relatively new phenomenon. Historically,”Muslims often revered and protected Jewish Holy sites.” They cited a pamphlet published by the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem between 1924 through 1953, “A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” an English language guide to the Temple Mount.

That pamphlet states on its opening page, referring to the Temple Mount: “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to the universal belief, on which [quoting Hebrew scripture] ‘David built there an alter unto the Lord.’”

The SWC leaders said:

We live in a time when Muslims, Christians and Jews are beheaded by a so-called Islamic State, when Christians have been ethnically cleansed from historic communities in Iraq and threatened throughout the Middle East. Israel is the only country where the religious rights of all faiths are protected and respected. Indeed, people of all faiths—including Muslims– are welcome to visit the Western Wall; Jews should be equally welcomed to visit the Temple Mount.

The SWC called on U.S. President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and other political and religious leaders to “tell President Abbas to stop the canards,” and to finally acknowledge that the Temple Mount is, indisputably, Holy to the Jewish people. Unless Abbas is confronted by those international leaders, the SWC warned, “Abbas’s lies will surely incite to violence.”

Joseph’s Tomb, which is located in Nablus, a Palestinian Arab-controlled town, was torched over Shabbat. The Hebrew name of the town is Shechem. According to the Book of Joshua, 24:32, “The bones of Joseph which the children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob.”

This is only the latest torching of Joseph’s Tomb by Arabs, even though Joseph is a prophet, according to Islam.

After the 1967 Six Day War, Israel regained access to the site of the Tomb, and in the 1980′s a Jewish seminary was built there. A small military outpost was also placed at the site, in order to protect the Jewish students. But following the Oslo Accords, the surrounding area was handed over to the Palestinian Arabs, while Israel retained authority over Joseph’s Tomb.

When fighting broke out between Israelis and Arabs in the area in October, 2000, six Arabs and one Jew were killed in a battle which took place at the Tomb. Israel then agreed to withdraw from the area and handed over control to the Palestinian Arabs who were expected to guard it. Instead, when the hand-off took place, on October 7, the Arab police watched as their people destroyed the Tomb. They rioters burned books, shtenders and other religious paraphernalia, and defiled the Tomb.

In 2011, a nephew of Israeli Knesset member and culture and sports minister Limor Livnat, Ben-Joseph Livnat, was murdered by Palestinian security forces while visiting Joseph’s Tomb. Four other Israelis were wounded. Palestinian Arabs set Joseph’s Tomb on fire, and they also attacked the funeral procession of Ben Joseph Livnat with rocks.

Joseph’s Tomb has been attacked by Arabs several more times since that time, including the latest arson over Shabbat.

Here is a video of the most recent torching of Joseph’s Tomb which took place in the context of rapidly escalating violence between Palestinian Arabs and Jews:

Tens of thousands of Jews are visiting Rachel’s Tomb Tuesday, the anniversary of her death as described in the Torah, to pray for Rachel to cry for them that their prayers be answered.

No tears need be shed for the Palestinian Authority, which can mourn for itself for not being able to hoodwink the world to believe Rachel’s Tomb is a Muslim holy site.

The Torah states in Genesis (B’reisheit’), “And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Efrat, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto this day.”

Before the Palestinian Authority campaign to rewrite the Bible and ancient history, Muslim authorities for centuries had acknowledged that Rachel’s Tomb is Jewish.

Excited by their blood-letting suicide bombings, firebomb and shooting attacks on Jews in the 1990s, the Palestinian Authority suddenly stopped referring to the site as “Rachel’s Dome” and called it the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah.

The manufactured tradition became more popular as Muslim clerics in the Arab world pounded the pulpit that the binding of Isaac (Yitzchak) actually is the binding of Ishmael, that the Holy Temples never existed and that the Western Wall really was the hitching post for the Muslim prophet Mohammed’s horse, may his and it memories be forgotten.

More amazing than the fibs that the Palestinian Authority invented was the acceptance of them by the anti-Israel crowd, especially  UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Last year won UNESCO support that the ancient site also belongs to Muslims even though the Tomb, “Kever Rochel” in Hebrew, existed long before Islam came into existence.

In December 2012, UNESCO director Irina Bokova accepted the view of its chief critic of Israel, Robert Serry, who also serves as UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He warned that Israel’s defining Rachel’s Tomb and the Patriarchs’ Cave in Hevron as holy sites would be bad for the sacred ghost known as the peace process.

UNESCO said Rachel’s Tomb also belongs to Christians and Muslim, which at one time built over the Tomb. That is like saying that JFK airport is a Jewish site because there is a synagogue there.

Two years before UNESCO’s sentence to the Jewish site, Palestinian Authority  chairman Mahmoud Abbas warned that there would be a “holy war” over Rachel’s Tomb if Israel did not accept the Muslim claim that that is was an ancient mosque.

Iran went one step further  with its foreign ministry declaring that Israel’s decision to make Rachel’s Tomb a national heritage site “rises from the regime’s strategy for cleaning all the sanctities of the Muslims and Christians in the occupied Palestine to give them a Zionist identity.”

The Palestinian Authority succeeded 13 years ago in taking over Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem, a direct violation of the Oslo Accords, but the efforts of Jewish leaders in the Shomron (Samaria) the past two years have enabled Jews to worship there under IDF guard.

The Oslo Accords interim agreement in 1995 states that security arrangements must “ensure free, unimpeded and secure access to the relevant Jewish holy sites.”

The Palestinian Authority has no problem with that. All it has to do is drive out the Jews with terrorist attacks and then convince UNESCO that Rachel’s Tomb is not a Jewish holy site.

That is the impetus for the Palestinian Authority to call Kever Rachel the  Bilal ibn Rabah mosque.

Jews traveling to pray at Rachel’s Tomb on her yahrzheit Tuesday can thank none other than former Haredi Knesset Member Menachem Porush that they are able to do so.

During the height of the Oslo mirage in 1995, Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and MK Porush appealed to Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin not to go through with his plan to turn Rachel’s Tomb over to the Palestinian Authority.

Rabbi Lau told the Prime Minister, “One does not part from one’s mother, and MK Porush broke down in tears, crying on Rabin’s shoulders.

Rabin surrendered, and today, the Palestinian Authority can mourn to Mohammed that truth has triumphed over at least one of its lies.

Thousands of Jews at Rachel’s tomb on the even of the anniversary of her death.

A Palestinian Authority terrorist opened fire on IDF troops securing Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem for the visit of 3000 Jewish worshipers to Jewish holy site.

It began with Palestinian Authority Arabs throwing stones at the IDF troops, who responded with anti-riot weapons. The PA Arabs then escalated the attack into live fire.

IDF troops shot back at a Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist, seriously wounding him. He managed to initially escape, but the troops gave chase, caught and arrested him, and took him to the Rabin Medial Center in Petach Tikva.

No IDF soldiers or Jewish worshipers were injured in this attack.

In 2011, Ben-Yosaf Livnat, the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat was killed by 3 members of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces at Joseph’s Tomb.

In 2000, IDF soldier Madhat Yousuf bled to death after being abandoned for 5 hours at Joseph’s tomb, by then Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, following a Palestinian Authority Arab attack on the site. Barak gave the order to not launch a rescue operation in order to avoid escalating the situation.

The late Dr. Zvi Ilan, one of Israel’s foremost archaeologists, once described Joseph’s Tomb as “one of the tombs whose location is known with the utmost degree of certainty and based on continuous documentation since biblical times.”

The Torah tells us that, though Joseph was initially buried in Egypt, Moses took them with the Israelites as they escaped from slavery since Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘G-d will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.’” However, the very fact that Moses managed to find the bones of Joseph was itself miraculous, given that over 210 years had passed.(Exodus 13:19).

The Talmud explains how that happened. “It is related that Serah, daughter of Asher, was a survivor of that generation. Moses went to her and asked if she knew where her uncle was buried. She answered him, ‘The Egyptians made a metal coffin for him which they fixed in the river Nile so that its waters shall be blessed.’ Moses went and stood on the bank of the Nile and exclaimed, ‘Joseph, Joseph! The time has arrived which the Holy One blessed be He swore-I will deliver you and the oath which thou didst impose upon the Israelite has reached the time of fulfillment.’ Immediately Joseph’s coffin floated on the surface of the water.

According to the Book of Joshua (24:32), “The bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob.” This means that the remains of Joseph who is known for his colorful robe, being sold into bondage by his jealous brothers, and rescuing the region from a deadly famine, have been resting in Joseph’s Tomb since the Exodus.

Ancient rabbinic texts, Midrashic literature, the early church historian Eusebius, Arab geographers, medieval Jewish pilgrims, and even 19th century British cartographers all agree regarding the location of Joseph’s Tomb. As William Cooke Taylor wrote in 1838, “The present monument is a place of resort not only for Jews and Christians but Mohammedans and Samaritans; all of whom concur in the belief that it stands on the verifiable spot where the patriarch was buried.” John Wilson, writing in 1847, claimed that on Joseph’s Tomb there were many visitors’ names, written in Hebrew and Samaritan letters, with one of them said to intimate the tomb’s repair by a Jew from Egypt, Elijah son of Meir, around 1749.

Following the Six Day War, Israel regained access to Joseph’s Tomb and in the 1980’s, a Jewish seminary was built at the holy site. While Shechem (Nablus) was given over to the Palestinian Authority in 1995, Israel retained control of this holy Jewish site. However, in October 2000, violent clashes that occurred around Joseph’s Tomb caused Israel to withdraw, with the understanding that the Palestinian Authority police would keep the order. It remains unclear what role these authorities played as a mob ransacked Joseph’s Tomb, including destroying Jewish holy books. Soon afterwards, the Palestinians attempted to rebuild Joseph’s Tomb as a mosque. Since then, the Palestinians have desecrated the holy site on more than one occasion. And, as of this writing, only a limited number of Israelis are allowed to visit Joseph’s Tomb once a month, and under tight IDF supervision.

Visit United with Israel.

The Shabak (Israeli General Security Services) has removed the gag order on the capture of three of the terrorists who were involved in the murder of Ben-Yosef Livnat at Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem in 2011. That attack also wounded five additional Israelis.

Two other terrorists involved in the attack have not yet been captured, according to a report in Arutz-7.

Ben-Yosef Livnat (24) from Elon Moreh, was a father of four, and the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat.

The three terrorists were members of the Palestinian Security Forces. Following their terror attack, they were put into a Palestinian jail to protect them from capture by the IDF.

A few months ago they were released (or “escaped”). The IDF captured them in May.

Israeli soldiers on Tuesday arrested three Palestinian Authority security officers who murdered 24-year-old Ben-Yosef Livnat at Joseph’s Tomb two years ago but spent only one year in a PA jail before being freed.

An IDF investigation of the incident confirmed Palestinian Authority claims that Livnat and other Jews tried to enter the holy Jewish site without coordinating with the military but added that the Palestinian Authority security officers “fired deliberately and with intention to harm the worshipers.”

Tuesday’s arrests were carried out by the IDF in Samaria. The Palestinian Authority had refused an Israeli request in 2011 to turn them over to the IDF.