The Palestinian Authority has renewed incitement over the Temple with accusations that Israel is guilty of “over 100 attacks” on the holy site, following nearly half a year of relative calm.
King Abdullah of Jordan and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met several months ago and each side took steps for calm and to end daily clashes on the holy sites and a spate of barbaric terrorist attacks on Jews.
Israeli ministers stopped uttering statements that Jews one day will rebuild the Third Temple, and they suddenly dropped off the front pages by not grabbing headlines with high-profile visits.
Jordan made it clear to the Palestinian Authority that the “status quo” allows Jews to visit the holy site, so long as they don’t pray there, and Palestinian Authority news agencies stopped reporting that Jews were “invading” and “storming the Temple Mount.
Things are way too calm for the Palestinian Authority, whose officials uttered several gems of incitement by Palestinian Authority officials this past month and which were translated and published by the Palestinian Media Watch, which summarized:
The three most important PA religious leaders have all stated this month that Al-Aqsa is threatened by Israel. This religious incitement in the name of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is exactly what Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party used to incite Palestinians to carry out acts of terror, including murder, during the recent two-month terror campaign in Jerusalem. During October and November 2014, Palestinians murdered 11 Israelis using guns, knives, and cars, and wounded dozens.
At that time, Palestinian Media Watch documented that Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash acknowledged the PA leadership’s full endorsement of the killings:
‘We kiss every forehead, every hand and even every foot that carries out Ribat (religious conflict/ war over land claimed to be Islamic) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and in Jerusalem.”
PA Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein on February 12 that said that Israel aspires “to build the alleged Temple on the ruins of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Abbas’ Advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, speaking a day earlier, said that UNESCO must prevent Israel from “destroying the human heritage in Jerusalem.”
The PA Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida’is warned on February 5 that since January, Israel has carried out “over 100 attacks and incidents of desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Ibrahimi Mosque [Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron]” and that “the Al-Aqsa Mosque is in grave and direct danger and that with every sunrise, this danger grows.”
Muslim leaders are absolutely paranoid of Jews being near the Temple Mount.
The Mufti, in his remarks published in the Arabic edition of the Ma’an News Agency and translated by PMW, went ballistics over a sign showing Jews and others the direction to the Temple Mount. Ma’an wrote:
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories and Preacher at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque Sheikh Muhammad Hussein warned about the placement of a sign by the occupation municipality near the Council Gate [entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount), with the inscription, ‘Temple Mount’ ….
The Mufti explained that with the elections of the occupation authorities approaching, all the parties are trying to draw the votes of the extreme right by increasing the attack on the Palestinian people and its holy places.
Abbas’ adviser al-Habbash also spun out of control over the “threatening” sign and “warned of the severity of the escalatory measure implemented by the Israeli occupation municipality crews, in placing a sign in Arabic, Hebrew and English calling the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque “the Temple of Solomon.”
Al-Habbash said that Israel’s changing of names in the Holy City “is a kind of intentional falsification of history and heritage, and a desperate attempt to deny the [city’s] Arab and Islamic character and force a new, invented character – the Jewish character. He noted that this was a most dangerous step, heralding grave consequences. “