Al-Quds, the most widely read “Palestinian” daily, on Monday reported from Abu Dhabi that “the UAE’s Etihad Airways used an image of a model it called the ‘Second Temple’ of the Jews, in a promotional advertisement for flights to Israel that will start next March.”
The Al-Quds report added that the Etihad promotional video “also featured a picture of one of the alleys in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, as it is considered a landmark in Israel.”
On Monday, according to Al-Quds, “the company, which is wholly owned by the UAE government, released a short marketing tape promoting the trips it intends to operate to Israel, under the title ‘Visit Tel Aviv.’ Next March 28, it said it would start daily flights to and from Tel Aviv. However, the tape shows a model under which ‘The Second Temple’ was written in English, as one of the landmarks in Israel.”
Al-Quds then elaborated: “The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs says on its website that the Second Temple was destroyed by Roman forces in AD 70. Officially, Israel says that the ‘Second Temple’ was located in the place where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located in occupied Jerusalem.”
Well, not just Israel’s FM, the history books also say so…
In any event, the Emirati airline, Etihad Airways, has removed the offending promotion from Twitter. We managed to lay our hands on the video, which is lovely:
Al-Quds added that “Jewish extremists in Israel are demanding the demolition of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the construction of the Temple on its ruins. The extremists also use this claim as an excuse to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, almost daily, and to hold prayers there.”
We wish. The news website follows the majority of Arab reports, including official Jordanian government reports, depicting any Jew who wears a yarmulka and visits the Temple Mount as an extremist storming Al-Aqsa. Of course, unlike thousands of Muslims who are allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, a Jew who as much as makes a blessing over an apple is cuffed and dragged away.
“Muslims and Arabs reject the Jewish claim, and assert that Al-Aqsa Mosque is a holy place for Muslims only,” according to Al-Quds, which cites the decisions of the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the United Nations, “East Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, is an occupied Palestinian Arab city and an integral part of the lands that Israel occupied in 1967.”
Al-Quds notes that “on August 13, the UAE and Israel reached an agreement to normalize relations between them, which was signed on September 15 in Washington,” adding that “the agreement was met with widespread Palestinian condemnation, as the Palestinian factions and leadership considered it a ‘betrayal’ by the Emirates and a stab in the back of the Palestinian people.”
See you in Tel Aviv, I guess…