Muslims claim Mount of Olives is ancient Islamic cemetery "loaned" to Jews

JPost reports:

The police must increase its presence around the the Mount of Olives Cemetery in east Jerusalem, where Jewish visitors are often attacked, MKs and activists said at a Knesset Interior Committee meeting Monday.

Police Kedem District commander Chief Superintendent Chaim Shmueli recommended that a fence be built around the cemetery with gates leading to the graves.

The meeting’s attendees pointed to continued problems of vandalism and rock-throwing, saying that the police is not doing enough.

“Either give [private] security guards more authority or increase the protection,” on the mount, MK Yoav Ben-Tsur said. “It cannot be that in the State of Israel our sovereignty is abandoned.”

MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) said the violence on the Mount of Olives is an attack on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem and the entire Land of Israel.

MK Abdullah Abu Marouf (Joint List) spoke out against vandalizing graves, calling it “not accepted by anyone in the world; a basic concept in human values.”

The Joint List MK also said the Waqf should have been invited to the meeting.

Why should the Waqf be invited to a meeting about the world's oldest and most venerated Jewish cemetery?

Because, like every single other Jewish heritage site that predates Islam, Muslims claim it as their own.

Al-Haj Mustafa Abu Zahra, "head of the Islamic graves," responded to this story by saying that the Mount of Olives is really an ancient Islamic cemetery known as "Ras al-Amud." It belongs to the Islamic Waqf, he claims. Adding to the absurdity, Abu Zahra added that a hundred years ago, the benevolent Muslims loaned it to Jews - and now they want it back.

The Jews moved the bones of hundreds or thousands of Muslims from the cemetery, and added thousands of its own fake graves to expand their land grab according to this Islamic leader.

Abu Zahra further said how ironic it was that Jews are concerned over these graves when they are destroying ancient Muslim cemeteries to build the Museum of Tolerance. (He didn't mention my discovery that the Supreme Muslim Council had decided in 1945 to build an office park directly on top of the Mamilla cemetery they are referring to. Or that the Mufti of Jerusalem dumped sewage from his hotel into the same cemetery. Or that it is Muslims, not Jews, who have planted fake graves - and been caught doing so.)

The article adds that Jews visiting the graves of their ancestors are the ones who are harassing the peaceful Arab residents of the area.

No lie is too fantastic for Muslims when they are trying to delegitimize Israel and Judaism.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)