Backgrounder: The Battle Over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount

Jewish reverence for the Temple Mount (Har HaBayit) long predates the building of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque in the 7^th century CE, and even predates the construction of the first Jewish Temple (Beit HaMikdash) by King Solomon almost 2000 years earlier in 954 BCE and which was destroyed in 587 BCE.

The Beit HaMikdash was built, according to Jewish tradition, on the Even Hashtiya, the foundation stone upon which the world was created. This is considered the epicenter of Judaism, where the Divine Presence (Shechina) rests, where the biblical Isaac was brought for sacrifice, where the Holy of Holies and Ark of the Covenant housing the Ten Commandments once stood, and where the Temple was again rebuilt in 515 BCE before being destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The Temple Mount is also known as Mount Moriah (Har HaMoriah), mentioned frequently in the Torah.

Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest city, is mentioned hundreds times in the Tanakh. It was the capital city of ancient Israeli kingdoms and home to Judaism’s holiest Temple. Jews from all over the ancient world would make pilgrimages to the Beit HaMikdash three times a year to participate in worship and festivities, as commanded in the Torah. Jerusalem and the Beit HaMikdash have remained the focus of Jewish longing, aspiration, and prayers. Daily prayers (said while facing Jerusalem and the Temple Mount) and grace after meals include multiple supplications for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Beit HaMikdash. Jews still maintain the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, the date on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, as a day of mourning. The Jewish wedding ceremony concludes with the chanting of the biblical phrase, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning,” and the breaking of a glass by the groom to commemorate the destruction of the Temples. And Yom Kippur services and the Passover Seder conclude each year with the phrase “Next Year in Jerusalem.”

The Western Wall (Kotel Hama’aravi, known simply as the Wall or Kotel) is the remnant of the outer retaining wall built by Herod to level the ground and expand the area housing the Second Jewish Temple. Its holiness derives from its proximity to the Temple site and specifically its proximity to the Western Wall of the Temple’s Holy of Holies (Kodesh Hakodashim—the inner sanctuary that housed the Ark of the Covenant–Aron HaBrit–and where the High Priest–Kohen Gadol— alone was permitted to enter on Yom Kippur). According to Midrashic sources, the Divine Presence never departed from the Western wall of the Temple’s Holy of Holies.

For the last several hundred years, Jews have prayed at Herod’s Western Wall because it was the closest accessible place to Judaism’s holiest site. According to Jewish tradition, the third and final Temple will be rebuilt with the coming of the Messiah.

There is a controversy among Orthodox rabbis regarding the permissibility of entering the Temple Mount compound. Many prohibit entering the compound because of the risk that someone ritually unpure might tread on the site of the Holy of Holies whose precise location is not known. Others permit entering the Temple Mount, saying they have determined where one can stand without touching holy soil. This area includes Herod’s expansion of the Temple, such as Solomon’s Stables, and the strip behind the Western Wall.

Jerusalem assumed significance as an Islamic holy site during the rule of the Umayyads (661-750 CE). Facing challenge to his power from Ibn al-Zubayr, a rebel who controlled Mecca, the Syrian-based Caliph Abd al-Malik sought to consolidate his leadership by establishing a place of worship for his followers in Jerusalem in place of Mecca. He built the Dome of the Rock (Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah) in 688-91 CE on the spot where the Jewish Temples had stood.

Two decades later, in 715 CE, the Umayyads built another mosque on the Temple Mount which they named the Masjid al Aqsa (The Furthest Mosque) to connote the “furthest mosque” alluded to in the Quran (17:1). This was the metaphorical spot from which Mohammed was said to have ascended to heaven in a vision (referred to in Arabic as the Mi’raj) after a night journey from Mecca (the Isra) on a winged steed named Al Buraq.

Although the Quran never mentions Jerusalem or the Temple Mount, the designation of a concrete site to what had been until then just a figurative name provided Muslims with a new religious focus. Several Qur’anic verses were subsequently construed to be obliquely referring to Jerusalem. The Temple Mount was renamed by Muslims al Haram al Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.

Following the end of Umayyad rule in 750 CE, Muslim interest in Jerusalem faded until the Crusaders took over in the 12^th century CE. Kurdish leader Saladin (Salah-al-Din ibn Ayyub) reconquered Jerusalem in 1187, re-establishing Muslim rule there and embarking on a building campaign, which continued under his descendents, the Ayyubids. During Ayyubid rule, there were periods when Jerusalem and its holy sites were ceded to the Christian Crusaders, who built churches on the Temple Mount. Perhaps in reaction to Crusader conquests, Jerusalem became established in Muslim consciousness as the third holiest city in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Even so, worship at this holy site was followed by long periods of Muslim neglect and disinterest.

The Western Wall, where Jews gathered to pray since the Ottoman conquest at the beginning of the 16^th century, held little interest or significance for Muslims until the period of the British Mandate. Following the British government’s Balfour Declaration in 1917 which supported the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, the Western Wall began to assume national as well as religious significance for Zionists and Jews began gathering there in larger numbers. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini, used the Wall as a focal point for his anti-Zionist campaigns. He incited Muslims by proclaiming the Western Wall a holy Muslim site which Jews were trying to seize. The Western Wall, after having been ignored for centuries, was suddenly declared the spot to which Mohammed had tied his winged steed during his Night Journey. The Wall was renamed Al Buraq after the horse. (Before this point, there had been several sites mentioned as the place where Muhammed had tethered his steed, including the eastern wall and the southern wall, but never the western wall.) Muslim riots in 1929 against Jewish worshipers at the Wall were instigated by the claim that Jewish prayer endangered the mosques holy to Islam.

While Jews were barred from entering and praying at their holy sites during Jordanian rule (1948-67), Jerusalem and the Temple Mount were largely ignored as important Muslim holy sites. But when Israel gained control of eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in 1967, the area once again became a focal point for Muslim religious fervor and incitement. Despite the fact that Israeli authorities turned control of the Temple Mount over to the Jordanian Islamic Waqf as a gesture of peace, Muslims have followed the example set by Haj Amin al Husseini and have attempted to use the Temple Mount as a pretext to gain world support against Jewish authority over Jerusalem.

During Jordan’s 19-year occupation of eastern Jerusalem (1948- 1967), Jewish holy places were desecrated, vandalized and destroyed. Jews were denied access to their holy sites (including the Western Wall and Temple Mount area) in violation of Article 8 of the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian Armistice Agreement. Christian churches were prohibited from buying property in Jerusalem and Christian religious organizations were restricted from owning property near Holy places. (For more details see: Backgrounder: History of Jerusalem).

Upon Israel’s 1967 capture of eastern Jerusalem containing Judaism’s holiest sites, Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan immediately ordered soldiers to remove an Israeli flag that had been raised over the Temple Mount. He declared:

To our Arab neighbors we extend the hand of peace. To members of the other religions, Christians and Muslims, I hereby promise faithfully that their full freedom and all their religious rights will be preserved. We did not come to Jerusalem to conquer the Holy Places of others. (Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem: The Torn City, Isratypeset, Jerusalem, 1976)

Dayan then handed administrative control over the Temple Mount to Jordan’s Islamic Waqf, and banned Jews from holding prayer services there. At the same time, Israel retained sovereignty and security control of the area and permitted non-Muslims, including Jews, to visit the site. This became the “status quo” on the Temple Mount.

Soon after gaining control over the Holy Basin of eastern Jerusalem, Israel passed the Protection of Holy Places Law (1967), granting special legal status to the Holy Sites and making it a criminal offence to desecrate or violate, or impede freedom of access to them. Under this law, the Minister of Religious Affairs is responsible for the implementation of the law, and thus has the authority to regulate prayer for any religious group, including Jews, on the Mount.

Until recent years, the vast majority of rabbis opposed ascending the Temple Mount for religious reasons, namely the halakhic (Jewish legal) prohibiton for those who are ritually unclean to step within the sacred parameters of the Temples. But increasing numbers of rabbis believe they have determined a path around the periphery where one can stand without stepping on the actual location of the Temples. As a result, more and more Jews have sought to exercise their legal right to visit the Mount and some have lobbied to the Supreme Court for permission to pray there.

Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, bowing to the desires of the Muslim Waqf, has steadfastly maintained the status quo prohibiting Jewish prayer at the site. The Israeli Supreme Court, as well, while acknowledging that Jews have the legal right to access and worship on the Temple Mount, has declined to alter the de facto ban on Jewish prayer there for fear that this would pose a security risk and could ignite a religious war.

Israel promised to continue the Hashemite Kingdom’s special status administering Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. But following the Oslo II Agreement in 1994, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat sought to replace Jordan’s influence and the Jordanian Waqf’s authority over the Temple Mount. After the death in 1994 of Jordanian-appointed Grand Mufti Suleiman Jabari, Arafat appointed Sheikh Ikrima Sabri as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, instead of the candidate proposed by Jordan. Hassan Tahboub was appointed as Minister of the Waqf, overshadowing the Jordanian-appointed head of the Islamic Waqf, Adnan Husseini. While Husseini was not dismissed from his post, his position became less relevant, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan effectively lost administrative and religious control of the Waqf to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

In July 2006, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas replaced Sheikh Ikrima Sabri,  who was aligning himself more and more with Israeli-Arab radicals, with Sheikh Mohammad Ahmed Hussein as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. (Shortly after being appointed, the new Grand Mufti, similarly indicated a radical perspective as he legitimized suicide bombings “as long as it plays a role in the resistance.”)  Sheikh Azzam al Khatib al Tamimi became head of the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf in March 2007.

Internal Muslim struggles for influence in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount compound have been steadily increasing while Jordan’s role as the protector of Islamic interests in Jerusalem is challenged by various Palestinian and Islamist forces. These include Sheikh Ra’ed Salah’s Islamic Movement of Israel’s northern branch; former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Ikrima Sabri, who is Salah’s ally and fellow Muslim Brotherhood representative; Hamas; Fatah/PLO; and the international, anti-Hashemite group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party), as well as Islamic sources affiliated with Turkey.

These Islamic groups all engage in the anti-Israel libels, hate rhetoric and incitement that have spawned violent intifadas and deadly attacks against civilians in Jerusalem. (For more information, see Israeli journalist Pinhas Inbari’s description of the competing regional interests and internal religious struggles on the Temple Mount).

Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, an anti-Israeli extremist and agitator has been in and out of Israeli prisons for incitement to violence and racism, as he repeatedly concocts anti-Semitic libels against Israelis and Jews and promotes violent jihad. In May 2016, he began a 9-month sentence in an Israeli prison for incitement to violence and racism. His Islamic Movement is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood with ties to Hamas. In his sermons, Salah has called for Jerusalem to become the capital of a global caliphate.  Salah founded, organized and funded the Murabitat, an Islamist movement, with the purpose of harassing non-Muslim visitors to the site. The Murabitat group was ruled illegal by Israel’s Defense Ministry in September 2015 and Salah’s branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel was similarly outlawed in November of that year for having links to terrorist groups and inciting the 2015-16 wave of violence.

After being replaced in 2006 as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, Salah’s Muslim Brotherhood colleague, serves as an imam in the Al Aqsa Mosque and heads the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, a Palestinian organization parallel to the Jordanian Waqf. Like Salah, Sabri too engages in hate rhetoric and incitement. He denies the Holocaust, Jewish history and connections to the Temple Mount, spreads false accusations and invents calumnies against Zionists and Jews, inciting Muslims to violence. (See “Calls to Jihad” below) Both Hamas and Fatah similarly defame and incite against Israel, with false allegations of Jews taking over the Islamic holy sites and calls for violence against Jews in defense of Al Aqsa. (See “Calls to Jihad” below.)

Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party)is an international Islamic organization whose goal is to establish a global caliphate to be proclaimed from the Temple Mount. According to Israeli journalist Pinhas Inbari, it is the most significant actor on the Temple Mount, focusing on “turning the Al-Aqsa plaza into a podium for declaring the global caliphate, canceling the Oslo agreements, and challenging Jordan’s pretension to be the guardian of the Jerusalem holy places.”

Inbari notes that “Jordan is struggling in several arenas to maintain its privileged status in the mosque plaza. It has to fight the Islamic Liberation Party, Hamas, Raed Salah’s Islamic Movement, as well as Fatah to a certain extent. It maintains its status thanks to the status quo arrangement with Israel and the special role of the Waqf administration.”

In 2013, an agreement was signed between the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdallah II, re-affirming the Jordanian king as the official “custodian” of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, especially the Temple Mount.

In 1967, Israel passed the Protection of Holy Places Law, granting special legal status to the Holy Sites and making it a criminal offence to desecrate or violate, or impede freedom of access to them.

Other laws mandated prior agreement from the Ministry of Religious Affairs or Ministry of Education and Culture in order to carry out excavations in or near a holy site. A 1978 Antiquities Law stipulates that where such a site is used for religious reasons, paving, quarrying, and interment and other actions can only be carried out with the written agreement of the Director of the Department of Antiquities.

The Muslim Waqf, however, consistently refuses to recognize Israeli sovereignty or the laws governing holy sites. Attempting to change the status quo of the Temple Mount, the Waqf has repeatedly flouted these laws with excavations and construction of new mosques. Many believe that under the guise of renovations on the Temple Mount, the Waqf is deliberately destroying archeological evidence of the site’s Jewish history.

In the 1970’s, the Waqf illegally dug a trench for utility lines without archeological supervision. This excavation exposed a 16-foot-long, six-foot-thick wall believed to have been part of the Herodian Temple complex. The wall was dismantled and covered up.

A 1983 article and editorial in Biblical Archeology Review accused the Waqf of concealing evidence of the First (Solomonic) and Second Temples with dirt, plantings and paving. The editorial demanded that qualified archeologists be given access to survey the Temple Mount site and called upon Muslim and Jewish archeologists to cooperate in preserving archeological remains there. The journal published before and after pictures of the archeological damage..

The Israeli authorities repeatedly failed to enforce the antiquity laws or to stop the Waqf’s unauthorized excavations because they felt it would be harmful to Arab-Israeli relations. This prompted a lawsuit against both the Waqf and Israeli authorities by “The Temple Mount Faithful,” an Israeli group seeking to rebuild a third Jewish temple on the site of the First and Second Temples. The Supreme Court ruled that the Waqf had indeed violated Israel’s antiquities laws on 35 occasions, causing irreparable damage or destruction to antiquities, but refused to intervene because of political sensitivities and the understanding that the laws would be enforced appropriately in the future.

In 1996, the Waqf embarked on the conversion of the area under the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount — Solomon’s Stables and the eastern Hulda Gate — into what was to be the largest mosque in the country with a capacity of 7-10,000. Calling it the Marwani mosque, the Waqf claimed that this was simply a renovation of a pre-existing mosque, although archeologists stated that there was no evidence for this. Operating without any archeological oversight and with no permits, the Waqf surreptitiously brought in heavy machinery and proceeded to construct, prompting the Jerusalem municipality to obtain a court order to halt the unsupervised building. This became highly politicized when Palestinians reacted with violent riots to Israel’s attempt to open a second exit from the Hasmonean tunnels (see below). Not wanting to escalate the situation, Israel’s Labor government allowed the Waqf to complete its work and open the mosque.

Over the next few years, the Waqf continued with its unilateral, unapproved construction and inaugerated a new mosque, called al Aqsa al Qadima. This incorporated the western Hulda gate double passageway — the only complete passageway remaining from the time of the Second Temple.

In 1999, after receiving approval to open an emergency exit in the Marwani mosque, the Waqf used bulldozers to expand the Solomon’s Stable mosque and excavate a massive opening (18,000 square feet by 36 feet) . As Ha’aretz columnist Nadav Shragai wrote, “For the first time since 1967, a fleet of dozens of bulldozers and trucks was put to work on the Temple Mount, and 6,000 tons of earth from the Mount was dug up and removed.” Workers dumped this rubble in the Kidron Valley. Amir Drori, director of the Antiquities Authority at the time, called it “an archeological crime” and Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein denounced it as “an assault on Jewish history.” (See “Media Mute on the Temple Mount Desecrations“)

Archeologists claimed that important artifacts from the First and Second Temples were found in this rubble, and in 2004, a project to sift the dumped material was initiated. Funded by the City of David Foundation and directed by Professor Gabriel Barkai and Tzachi Zweig, archeologists and volunteers have uncovered thousands of rare and important artifacts from the First and Second Temple periods, as well as from Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Early Arab periods. Among the finds are pottery shards, a conical stone seal, an arrowhead. and a rare bulla, all dating to the First Temple period, and hundreds of opus sectile stone tiles dating to the Second Temple period.

The Waqf cut off all access to the Israeli Antiquities Authority from the Temple Mount in 2000. In response to the continued unauthorized construction work by the Waqf on the Temple Mount, a non-political, volunteer committee was formed to take action. Called “The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount,” (CPDATM) it included prominent archeologists, judges, lawyers, literary and other public figures from across the Israeli political spectrum.. They called upon the Prime Minister to order the immediate halt to the illegal, unsupervised construction by the Waqf on the Temple Mount – work which, they claimed, was causing “grave harm to archeology.” The Waqf was accused of large-scale construction over an area of thousands of square meters, using heavy machinery, paving over extensive areas, and removing earth rich in archeological findings. The Shin Bet also warned the prime minister of Waqf plans to open additional mosques on the Temple Mount.

Despite the Waqf’s banning of archeologists, journalists and government officials from entering the area, aerial photographs and undercover reports and films provided a picture of what was happening . A letter by the CPDATM to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon includes details of the damage and destruction by the Waqf.  Despite numerous legal petitions by CPDATM and other groups to halt the Waqf’s illegal construction, but the Supreme Court continued in its refusal to intervene.

In the summer of 2007, the Waqf began to dig a deep trench to replace old electric cables. Although Israeli police and the antiquities Antiquities Authority approved the excavation, heavy tractors were used. The CPDATM protested the use of heavy equipment and the lack of careful archaeological supervision but the work went on, apparently damaging what was later found to be structures dating to the First and Second Temples.

Ha’aretz columnist Nadav Shragai has written about the lack of supervision over the Waqf’s illegal building. He points out that both the Israel Antiquities Authority and the municipal licensing and inspection department have been denied access to the Temple Mount and information about what happens there. Moreover, there appears to be a “deliberate interference” by police and whoever is in charge to prevent information from reaching the antiquities authority. ( See “The Latest Damage to Antiquities on the Temple Mount” by Nadav Shragai.)  

By contrast, an attempt in 1981 by the rabbi of the Western Wall, Yehuda Meir Getz, to secretly reopen an ancient sealed gate and manually excavate an existent tunnel carved into the rock under the Temple Mount (believed to lead to the Holy of Holies and possibly the original lost Ark of the Covenant) was halted by the Israeli government, which ordered the opening sealed with reinforced concrete. (See “Raiders of the Lost Ark” by Nadav Shragai)

The reluctance to enforce Israel’s laws protecting antiquities and evidence of its Jewish heritage is rooted in the desire to prevent Arab violence and rioting.

Meanwhile, the Waqf continues to initiate construction projects on the Temple Mount without authorization from the Antiquities Authority, raising concerns that such unsupervised construction may destroy or damage sensitive archeological artifacts, or even the foundation of the Jewish Temple that lies beneath the mosque.

Yasser Arafat

Ambassador Dennis Ross, who shaped U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process as Special Middle East Coordinator and who presided over President Clinton’s failed Israeli-Palestinian peace summit at Camp David in 2000, reported that Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat raised only one idea at the Camp David talks – namely, to deny the core of the Jewish faith by claiming that the Temple had never existed in Jerusalem, but in Nablus.

Arafat feared acknowledging the existence of a Jewish connection. He told Clinton “I am a religious man, and I will not allow it to be written of me [in history] that I have… confirmed the existence of the so-called temple underneath the mountain.” {Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 12, 2000, Translation: MEMRI )

Later, in an Oct. 5, 2002 interview with London’s Al Hayat, he went even further in his denial of Jewish history, changing the story once more. He alleged not only that the Jewish Temple never existed in Jerusalem, but that it had never existed in any of Palestine:

For 34 years they [Jews] have dug tunnels, the most dangerous of which is the great tunnel. They found not a single stone proving that the Temple of Solomon was there, because historically the Temple was not in Palestine [at all]. They found only remnants of a shrine of the Roman Herod. (Translation: MEMRI)

Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, bolstered by the West as a moderate, similarly denies that a Jewish Temple existed on the Temple Mount. He was quoted as saying:

Anyone who wants to forget the past [the Israelis] cannot come and claim that the [Jewish] temple is situated beneath the Haram. They demand that we forget what happened 50 years ago to the refugees – and I speak as a living, breathing refugee – while at the same time they claim that 2000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the assertion that this is so [that there has ever been a Jewish Temple}. But even if it is so, we do not accept it, because it is not logical for someone who wants a practical peace. (Kul Al-Arab (Israel), August 25, 2000; Translation: MEMRI)

Abbas repeatedly refers to Judaism’s “alleged” Temple. For example:

“[Israel’s actions in Jerusalem] ultimately aim to achieve dark goals: Destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple… (WAFA, Aug. 21, 2012 and Al Hayat Al Jadida, Aug. 22, 2012)

And he has repeatedly called Jewish claims to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount ‘delusional myths’ and ‘falsification of history’. For example:

The occupation authorities are continuing their efforts to achieve their final goal of Judaizing Jerusalem, acting in several ways. These include, first, their attempt to change the facts of Jerusalem’s landscape in every detail, and replace it with a different landscape whose purpose is to serve delusional myths and the arrogance of power. They imagine that by this brute force they can invent a [Jewish] history, establish claims and erase solid religious and historical facts. (PA Television, Jan.17, 2014; Translation: Palestinian Media Watch)

and

The fact Israel is trying to establish on the ground is the divsion of the Al-Aqsa Mosque according to time and place, with the empty excuse that it [Israel] has a claim to it. These are empty and false claims, and a falsification of the history we all know. (PA Television, Oct. 8, 2014; Palestinian Media Watch )

Nabil Sha’ath

Other Palestinian political leaders have followed suit. For example, Nabil Sha’ath of the Palestinian Legislative Council and senior advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas who previously was chief negotiator in Israeli-Palestinian talks labels the Jewish temple as “fictitious.” He said:

[The Israelis] are insisting on sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa mosque on the pretext that an Israeli Temple is buried beneath it and that, through their continued sovereignty, they can one day unearth it…Their claim was not substantiated by the excavations they carried out around and under the mosque. (Voice of Palestine Radio Station, July 26, 2000)

Israel demands control of the Temple Mount based on its claim that its fictitious temple stood there. (Al-Ayyam, July 27, 2000).

Walid Awad

Walid Awad, foreign press spokesman for the Fatah Central Media Commission and formerly director of foreign publications for the PLO’s Ministry of Information, stated an interview with IMRA on Dec. 25, 1996:

There is no tangible evidence of Jewish existence from the so-called ‘Temple Mount Era’. . . . The location of the Temple Mount is in question. . . . It might be in Jericho or somewhere else.

In an online article “Jerusalem, A City Crying Out For Justice” put out by Awad as the director of foreign publications for the PA Ministry of Information (the PA Web site is no longer available), Awad accuses Israel of falsifying history and archeology after 1967 in order to create a Jewish connection to Jerusalem:

Immediately after Israeli soldiers occupied Arab East Jerusalem back in 1967, the Hebrew University, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, and the Department of Antiquities collectively and individually began a massive excavation campaign in Arab East Jerusalem in a bid to find allocate traces of Jewish existence from the so called ‘Temple Mount Era.’

The fact of the matter is that almost thirty years of excavations did not reveal anything Jewish, no tangible evidence of theirs was unearthed. Much to their chagrin, what surfaced from their underground excavations turned out to be more Muslim palaces, courts and mosques. Other excavations revealed archeological ruins belonging to the Romans, Greeks and Canaanites…

…To give credibility to these claims, and to translate the ingenious falsified historical accounts of the city in order for them to obtain worldwide authenticity, they[Israeli archeologists and authorities] decided to manipulate connect the history of Jerusalem as they want it to be seen by the world, and to present it in a way acceptable to contemporary thinking of everyday people…

…Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth implanted in some minds. Nothing tangible has been found to give credibility to these claims.

 In May 2015, for example, Palestinian Authority Deputy minister of Jerusalem Affairs Salwa Hadib declared that   ‎‎the Palestinian people  “gathered in the area before anything else, ‎centuries before the Jewish religion,” that artifacts showing a Jewish presence were bogus, thrown on the ground by an Israeli engineer and an archeologist  and that Jews are “stealing [Palestinian] history and geography.”‎ (PA TV, May 24, 2015)

The official television station of the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly broadcast music videos accusing Israel of plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and calling the Israeli temple “imaginary.”

Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, previous Mufti of Jerusalem,, current head of the Palestinian Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem 

Ikrima Sabri, until recently the Palestinian Authority-appointed mufti of Jerusalem and the highest ranking Islamic clerical authority in the PA, insists Jews have no connection to any part of the Temple Mount, including the Western Wall. In 1997, he proclaimed:

The Al-Buraq Wall [Western Wall] and its plaza are a Muslim religious property, and the Israeli government’s decisions do not affect it…The Al-Buraq Wall is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque. The Jews have no relation to it. (Al Ayam, Nov. 22, 1997)

In 2000, he reiterated this in an Israeli-Arab weekly:

No stone of the Al-Buraq [the Western] Wall has any relation to Judaism. [Kul Al-Arab, August 18, 2000]

And a few months later, he gave an interview to a German daily in which he again asserted:

There is not [even] the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish Temple on this place in the past. In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history… The Jews cannot legitimately claim [the Western] wall, neither religiously nor historically. The Committee of the League of Nations recommended in 1930, to allow the Jews to pray there, in order to keep them quiet. But by no means did it acknowledge that the wall belongs to them. [Die Welt, January 17, 2001]

In 2002, Sabri wrote a booklet, entitled Palestine – the Human Factor and the Land which was published in Egypt in August 2002. In it, he used as evidence the anti-Semitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”to support his allegation that the Jews have for centuries been secretly plotting to take over Palestine. He denied any Jewish historic connection and right to the land, labelling the Jewish Temple built by Solomon as “imaginary.”

Over the years, Sabri has continued his attempt to marshal the religious fervor of the Arab and Muslim world against Israeli control of Jerusalem, using his historical revisionism about the Temple Mount and Holy Basin as his theme to indoctrinate the Palestinian people against the notion of any Jewish rights in the area. Here are some additional examples:

Their [the Jews’] allegation that Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the rubble of Soloman’s Temple is unproven and is far from the truth. The truth is, when Almighty Allah determined that Al-Aqsa would be here, it was impossible that a place of worship of non-Muslims had been there before. This is hatred and envy. They are envious of us because of the existence of Al-Aqsa in our land. They want to steal Al-Aqsa. (PA TV, Oct. 21, 2005, translated by Palestinian Media Watch)

Sheikh Sabri said that in the holy texts of the Quran and the Hadith, the Jews do not have any rights to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. Therefore, this site is holy only to Muslims, and no one among the heavenly religions shares it with them. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 23, 2009, translated by Palestinian Media Watch)

[Sheikh Sabri] noted that the [Israeli] occupation has targeted these holy places because they link the world’s Muslims and Christians to the land of Palestine. In addition, he emphasized that history bears witness to the fact that there are no historic Jewish landmarks [in Palestine], and that they [Israel] invent and falsify history through the construction of synagogues. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 5, 2015, translated by Palestinian Media Watch)

Tayseer Tamimi, former Chief Religious Justice of the PA and current Secretary-General of the Palestinian Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem

The Palestinian Authority’s chief religious official, Tayseer Tamimi frequently speaks at public events and on Palestinian TV. In a televised interview on June 9, 2009, he demonized Jews, denying Jewish heritage and ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

I know of Muslim and Christian holy sites in [Jerusalem]. I don’t know of any Jewish holy sites in it… Israel has been excavating since 1967 in search of remains of their Temple or their fictitious Jewish history.

Reversing history and turning truth on its head, he accused Jews of falsely converting the “Al Buraq” wall into a Jewish site.

When the Prophet [Muhammad] entered Jerusalem, after landing with his ‘riding animal’ in the Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, he tied it to the western wall, which is known today [by Muslims] as the al-Buraq Wall, and which the Jews usurped by falsification and deception [saying it is the Western Wall of the Temple].

He made absurd allegations about Jewish scientific attempts to destroy Arab holy sites:

The [Israeli] excavations’ purpose is to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, its foundations have been removed. Chemical acids were injected into the rocks to dissolve them. The soil and the pillars [were moved] so the mosque is hanging in midair. There is an Israeli plan to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to build the Temple.

In 2014, he proclaimed to his followers that Jews are prohibited from praying, not only at the Temple Mount but at the Western Wall, as well:

The Al-Aqsa Mosque includes all its courtyards, foundations, skies, gates, domes, walls, and specifically, its western wall (Al-Buraq Wall), [parentheses in source], which is, after all, a part of it… Allah decreed that the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is Islamic and belongs to Muslims alone… It is part of the religious belief of a billion and a half Muslims, and the Jews have no right to it. No party, no matter how much power and international support it has, can change this established fact by giving the Jews any right to it, or the right to pray in any part of it. The Al-Aqsa Mosque includes all its courtyards… and specifically, its western wall. [Al-Hayyat Al-Jadida, Feb. 17, 2014]

Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, current Grand Mufti of Jerusalem 

Hussein who has served as Grand Mufti since 2006 and whose radical anti-Semitic views include support for suicide bombings and declaring the killing of Jews an Islamic goal also declares “the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with its gates, walls, plazas, and structures” the “property of the Muslims alone,” claiming that Jewish visits to the Temple Mount are “invasions” that must be violently repelled. (See below).

In 2015, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, accused Israel of trying to extend their influence over the Temple Mount “and establish facts on the ground inside it, like what happened at the Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., Cave of the Patriarchs) in Hebron.” He accused Israel of trying to steal Jerusalem’s “character and identity” with “falsification of facts.”(Ma’an new agency, Feb. 12, 2015)

In May 2016, the Grand Mufti took part in a summit in Jordan and delivered his study entitled “The Jews’ Claims in the Land of Palestine – Display and Refutation” which, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, “refutes the Jews’ false claims, and particularly everything regarding the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its environs.” (Ma’an, translation by Palestinian Media Watch, May 2016)

Palestinian academics, using their credentials to lend weight to their claims–often on Palestinian educational TV– have frequently denied the Jewish historical connection to the land, replacing it with a fictitious Arab connection. According to them, the Bible has no historical veracity. Palestinians, they claim, are the direct descendents of Canaanites, while Jews, they say, are descendents of Khazars who have no claim to the land.

Dr. Issam Sissalem, Professor of Middle Eastern History at the Islamic University of Gaza, frequently appears on PA television, denying any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.

About Solomon’s Temple, he asserts:

This is the biggest lie in history by those liars. (PA TV, Oct. 8, 2001)

There is no historical text that proves the existence [of Solomon’s Temple] or that it has a real history other than the Bible, and the Bible as we have previously mentioned… was written based on ancient legends. (PA TV, Aug. 2, 2004)

And about the Western Wall, he claims:

That’s the place where Muhammad went to Heaven and is part of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Zionist enemy falsely claims that this wall is part of the so-called temple. This is a deceitful lie. {PA TV, Oct. 8, 2001)

In fact, Sissalem attempts to erase all Jewish connection to the Land of Israel:

As I’ve already said, the ancient Hebrews were destroyed. Utterly decimated. Actually, they were foreigners in this land. They were primitive Bedouin from the Arabian Desert. This land is ours. Jerusalem, and every one of her stones, are ours. {PA TV, Oct. 8, 2001)

I want to point out that we should not focus much on what is called the [Biblical] Hebrew tribes, who are in fact Bedouin – Arab tribes. There is no connection between them and these Khazar Jews [of Israel today]. (Aug. 2, 2004)

The Jews lived in isolated areas, in ghettos in Poland and in Russia. They were the remains of the Khazars with no connection to our land or its history … (PA TV, Nov. 21, 2004)

Historian and former Arafat advisor Jarar al Qidwa makes similar assertions:

Solomon’s Temple, I believe, was built by the Canaanites who were the neighbors of the Israelis, the Israelites… I want to state several words clearly: the Bible became an archival document, not representing what the Israelis and the first Jews were, but what they thought they were, what they imagined. The Temple is the fruit of their imagination. In any case, when our nation or our Canaanite forefathers came to Palestine, they built the Temple… a temple in Jerusalem…

…The issue of the temple is a Zionist innovation. No one said that the temple that was built in Jerusalem, neither the Canaanite nor Roman, no one said that it was in the place of the [Islamic] Al Haram.” (PA TV, Aug. 2, 2004)

Palestinian academics continue to speak out on Palestinian TV to accuse Israel of falsifying history and appropriating Palestinian history. For example, Dr. Jamal Amar, Bir Zeit University lecturer on urban planning has appeared on PA TV to label the historic Jewish Temple “fictitious” and to claim that the “Holy of Holies” was just an “illusion” and “myth”, a “story of no value, like the Arabian Nights and other legends.” He alleged that Israeli archeologists have found “nothing at all”– “not a water jug, not a coin, not any earthen vessel no bronze weapons, no piece of metal, absolutely nothing of this myth, because it’s a myth and a lie.” [PA TV, June 23, 2009)

The attempt to erase the Jewish connection to Israel is not limited to the Palestinians. The extent to which this denial has caught on in the Arab and Muslim world was revealed in Yitzhak Reiter’s study (in Hebrew) which was based on thousands of Islamic legal rulings, proclamations and writings that he found at the Cairo book fair, Arabic websites and Islamic bookshops. (Ha’aretz columnist Nadav Shragai summarized some of Reiter’s findings in a November 27, 2005 column entitled “In the beginning was Al-Aqsa.”)

Below are just a few of many examples since 1967:

On December 30, 1973, King Feisal of Saudi Arabia proclaimed on Radio Riyadh:

The Jews have no connection whatsoever with Jerusalem and have no sacraments there. They cliam that the Temple of Solomon is there…The Temple of Solomon does not exist in Jerusalem…Therefore the Jews have no connection or right to have any presence in Jerusalem, or any authority there.

Saudi historian Muhammed Hassan Sharab declares that the Quranic Al Aqsa mosque encompasses the entire Temple Mount compound including the Western Wall and that the Temple of Solomon was never located there.

Egyptian archaeologist Abed al-Rahim Rihan Barakat, Director of Antiquities in the Dahab area of Sinai. Barakat asserts:

The legend about the Jewish temple is the greatest historic crime of forgery.

University of Cairo lecturer and one-time TV host Abed al-Tuwab Mustafa claims that there is no basis for the Jewish claim of a holy Temple on Mount Moriah.

Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi, Professor Emeritus at the American University of Beirut theorizes that ancient Israelites never inhabited Palestine and that biblical events occurred, not in Palestine but in southwestern Arabia, between Mecca and Yemen. He expounds upon this theory in a1985 book, The Bible Came from Arabia, basing his claims on the fact that many places in Arabia bear biblical names.

In the U.S., Nadia Abu El Haj, a tenured professor of Anthropology at Barnard College, wrote a book alleging that Israeli archeology is compromised by nationalist political motives to substantiate the nation’s “origin myth.” Although she has no archeological expertise herself, she dismisses the vast archeological evidence supporting historical and biblical accounts of the long Jewish presence in Israel as having been manipulated in order to produce evidence for an Israelite connection to the land.

Historical revisionism has become part and parcel of Palestinian-Authority policy. The libel that Israel fabricated a Jewish history and connection to Jerusalem holy sites for political purposes is promoted by government officials and through Palestinian Authority-run newspapers and programs on state-run television. For example, in Aug. 2015, a narrator on PA television declared to viewers that:

The story of the Temple is nothing but a collection of legends and myths for political reasons. They [Jews] have set Palestine and Jerusalem as their goal, and have used the myths in the service of their declared goals of occupation and imperialism. In the spirit of the delusions and legends, they try to get rid of the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and establish their so-called ‘Temple’ – the greatest crime and forgery in history.” (PA Television, Aug. 1 2015; Translation: Palestinian Media Watch)

There are differing claims in currency among Muslims about who built the Al Aqsa mosque, with many contending that its establishment predated Solomon’s construction of the First Jewish Temple in 954 BCE.  One popular claim is that this mosque was built by Adam.

Abdullah Marouf, who worked as Media and Public Relations Officer of the al-Aqsa mosque for a time provided English readers with the rewritten “history” of the structure on a now defunct English Web site:

The first building of al-Aqsa mosque was done by Prophet Adam (PBUH), then it has been renovated and rebuilt many times, one of them was by Prophet Sulayman (Solomon) (PBUH), but his building of al-Aqsa was only a renovation of the mosque, not a first-time building. Therefore, we cannot say that Prophet Sulayman was the one who BUILT al-Aqsa mosque, but we can say that he (PBUH) RENOVATED or REBUILT the mosque.

It has become standard for the Palestinian media and Palestinian leaders to refer to the Jewish Temples as “alleged.”  (For more recent examples, see Palestinian Media Watch here.)

In this way, the Palestinians (and Muslims) are indoctrinated to believe that Jewish history and connections to Judaism’s holy sites are bogus, fabricated as a ploy to damage Palestinian  and Muslim interests.

On Nov. 5, 2014, the PLO’s Department of National Affairs issued a warning to journalists not to use the term “Temple Mount” when describing the contested holy site. The media advisory admonished:

All international media representatives are advised to adhere to international law and correct any other existing terminology used. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is not a disputed territory and all other terms, therefore, are null and void.

Exactly one year later, on Nov. 5, 2015, the PLO’s Negotiation Affairs Department broadened its directive to journalists in its “Key Points to Remember When Reporting on Occupied Palestine“. In this document, the PLO admonished journalists to make sure to constantly refer to an illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, including Jerusalem and its holy sites. Under this directive, journalists were to emphasize that “the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound is under Israeli Occupation just as the rest of East Jerusalem,” that “Israel has effectively changed Al-Aqsa’s Status Quo,” and that Israel was “in violation of international law.”

While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continued to bypass direct negotiations with Israel by seeking recognition of a Palestinian state through a unilateral declaration of independence at UN, it concomitantly employed historical revisionism to wage war on Judaism’s connection to Jerusalem through UNESCO, the first UN body to formally accept “Palestine” as a member state.

In July 2015, the Palestinian Authority had six Muslim countries introduce on its behalf a draft resolution that would classify the Western Wall, where Jews pray, as part of the Muslim Al Aqsa compound. Although that clause failed to pass, the Palestinian Authority did not give up.

In April 2016, a resolution on Jerusalem drafted on behalf of the Palestinians by seven Muslim countries was adopted by the Executive Council of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The resolution essentially erased the Temple Mount’s Jewish history, referring to it only as “al-Aksa Mosque/al-Haram al Sharif and its surroundings” and to the Western Wall as the “al-Buraq Plaza.” It entered the realm of conspiracy theories by absurdly accusing Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem through the “planting of fake Jewish graves” in Muslim cemeteries and “the conversion of many Islamic and Byzantine remains into the so-called Jewish ritual baths or into Jewish prayer places.” And it condemned Israel for exercising security measures on the Temple Mount, demanded that Israel cease its own excavations in eastern Jerusalem as well as any oversight of the Waqf’s construction on the Temple Mount.

Three months later, in July 2016, the Palestinians, together with Jordan, introduced a resolution at UNESCO again challenging Jewish ties to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount and calling for a return of the Temple Mount to its alleged “historic” status quo before 1967 when Jordan occupied eastern Jerusalem.

Although voting on this draft resolution was postponed, another UNESCO resolution was passed on behalf of the Palestinians in October 2016, calling for the Waqf’s “exclusive authority on Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif” and using only Muslim terms to describe the Temple Mount compound. It called for an immediate end to all Israeli construction in the Jewish Quarter and Western Wall plaza while at the same time demanding that unlimited Waqf construction take place without any restriction or oversight by the antiquities authority.

Jordan’s Press Association proclaimed that the resolution “was a result of joint efforts between the Jordanian and Palestinian political leaderships and “praised the resolution for “clarifying that there are no Jewish religious connections to Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif” and affirming “Muslims’ full right over the historical and religious site.”

In December 2016, the Palestinians initiated and succeeded in having the UN Security Council adopt a controversial resolution (UNSC 2334) that labeled the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Old City, Jewish quarter and Jewish holy sites in eastern Jerusalem that Israel captured in 1967  “Palestinian territory.”

In May 2017, UNESCO’s executive board passed a resolution submitted by seven Muslim countries — Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan —    referring to Israel as an “occupying power” in Jerusalem, declaring Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem “null and void,” to be rescinded, and condemning all archeological excavations in the Old City under the auspices of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, as well as any works and maintenance or construction projects under Israeli authorities in and around the Old City.

In July 2017, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee echoed the earlier resolution with a Jordanian-sponsored resolution (promoted by the Palestinian Authority). It labelled Israel an “occupying power” in Jerusalem and condemned  Israeli “excavations, tunneling, works, projects…in East Jerusalem,”  calling them “illegal under international law.”