palestine & other myths

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Section 5 .. Other Beliefs/Other Religions /Islam

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Palestine and Other Myths

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The Palestinians

Facts and Fables of the Middle East

1930 Moslem Council: Jewish Temple Mount ties 'beyond dispute' (Both Below)

Excerpts from an article entitled The Palestinians...Victims of Jewish Oppression or Pawns In An Arab Conspiracy?by Dr. David R. Reagan

"As for the Palestinian people, I have nothing but compassion for them over the terrible, inhumane way that they have been treated by theArab nations ever since 1948. The war that year produced hundreds of thousands ofrefugees. One million Jews were forcibly evicted from Arab countries overnight, and tiny

Israel had to absorb them.

"In contrast, The 500,000 Palestinian refugees were denied any place to go. The Arab statesrefused to absorb them because they wanted to use them as a pawn to orchestrate worldpublic opinion against Israel. So, Jordan, the nation that controlled the West Bank from1948 to 1967, herded them into horrible refugee camps and let them live like rats.

The Issue of a Palentinian State"The call for a Palestinian state is nonsense. Israel is one of the smallest nations in theworld, smaller than Kuwait (about the size of New Jersey). It has no land to give away. Ifthe West Bank were to be given to the Palestinians, Israel would be only 9 miles wide at aspot directly above Tel Aviv. No nation in the world would give such land to its sworn enemy. And for the nations of the world to demandthat Israel do so is pure hypocrisy of the first order.

"A Palestinian state already exists. It is called Jordan. It constitutes two-thirds of the land that has been historically referred to asPalestine. There is no need for another Palestinian state. There are 22 Arab states and only one tiny Jewish state. Why must another Arabstate be carved out of the heart of Israel? Only because the World hates the Jews.

"Another point to keep in mind is that there has never been a Palestinian state in all of history. From the fall of Israel in 70 AD to the

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present, the area dubbed "Palestine" by the Romans (to insult the Jews, since Palestine in Latin means Philistine) has been a part ofgreater Syria, and all the Arabs who lived there looked upon themselves as Syrians. There was never a Palestinian state, nor wasJerusalem ever the capital city of any Arab entity. The land and the city are Jewish ..."

Facts and Fables of the Middle East

According to most news sources, Palestinians want their homeland back and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy, but isthere any factual base to these claims?

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The Palestinians discovered their national identity after Israel won thewar 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Before this there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland however, in the Six-Day War, Israelcaptured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, not from Yasser Arafat, but from Jordan's King Hussein.

The first time the name Palestine was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans overran Jerusalem, smashed the Temple and declared theland of Israel would be no more. Adding insult to injury the Romans re-named the land Palestine, derived from the Philistines, a Goliathianpeople conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, which didnt work.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic andChristian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least partof the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land knownas Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention),Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Additionally the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands, while Israel represents one-tenthof 1 percent of the landmass, but no matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites.. The claim that the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holysites? The Moslem claim to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Koran, which talks (in Sura 17:1) of the Furthest Mosque:

"Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque."

But there is no foundation to the Moslem argument that this "Furthest Mosque" (Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza) refers to what is now called the AqsaMosque in Jerusalem.

In fact, the Koran mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times, but never mentions Jerusalem even once. Withgood reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

In the days of Mohammed, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem wascaptured by Khalif Omar only in 638, six years after Mohammed's death. Throughout this period there were only churches in Jerusalem. Achurch, built in the Byzantine architectural style stood on the Temple Mount and was called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian, .

The Aqsa Mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the Rock (691-692) by Khalif Abd El Malik. The name "Omar Mosque" is therefore amisnomer. In or around 711, or about 80 years after Mohammed died, Malik's son, Abd El-Wahd, who ruled from 705-715, reconstructed

the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque. He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine basilicastructure with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular "ship" in the center. All he added was an onion-like dome on top of thebuilding to make it look like a mosque. He then named it El-Aqsa, so it would sound like the one mentioned in the Koran.

Many scholars are agreed it is logical that Mohammed intended the mosque in Mecca as the "Sacred Mosque," and the mosque in Medina asthe "Furthest Mosque." Which leads us to one inescapable conclusion.

There are no Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

The Jews on the other hand can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

Interestingly Mohammed issued a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that had been tolerated only for somemonths in order to lure Jews to convert to Islam. When that effort failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to it on February 12, 624.Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.

Perhaps the solution to the Middle East mayhem should begin with the t ruth.

1930 Moslem Council: Jewish Temple Mount Ties 'Beyond Dispute'By Etgar Lefkovits [Jerusalem Post 01/26/01

JERUSALEM (January 26) - Although Islamic Wakf officials are currently denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, a 1930booklet about the site published by the supreme Moslem body in Jerusalem during the British Mandate states categorically that the site'sidentification with the First Temple is "beyond dispute."

Published by the Supreme Moslem Council, the nine-page English-language tourist guide, entitled A Brief Guide to al-Haram al-Sharif, acopy of which was obtained by The Jerusalem Post, states:

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"The site is one of the oldest in the world. Its sanctity dates from the earliest times. Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple isbeyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offeredburnt offerings and peace offerings." A footnote refers the reader to 2 Samuel 26:25[1].

The Supreme Moslem Council "was the supreme Moslem body appointed by the British Government during the Mandate period toadminister the Moslem affairs in Palestine which included Wakf affairs," said Dr. Eli Reches, an Arab affairs expert at Tel Aviv University.

The booklet focuses on the Moslem connection to the site, with the authors stating clearly: "... for the purposes of this Guide, whichconfines itself to the Moslem period, the starting point is the year 637 A.D."

But Judaism's unequivocal connection to the Temple Mount comes up again on the last page of the booklet, which discusses the"substructures" of the Dome of the Rock.

Describing the area of Solomon's Stables, which Islamic Wakf officials converted into a new mosque in 1996, the guide states:

"...little is known for certain about the early history of the chamber itself. It dates probably as far back as the construction ofSolomon's Temple... According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of theconquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D."

The guide mentions in passing Christianity's connection to Solomon's Stables. "We also know that this space was used by the Kni