For 100 years, Arabs have lied that Jews are about to demolish Al Aqsa

The Guardian, August 28, 1924

In the 1920s, the notoriously antisemitic Mufti of Jerusalem - appointed by the British - built his power base by raising money in the Arab world for restoration of the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, which had fallen into disrepair under 400 years of Ottoman Muslim rule. 

Part of his sales pitch was that the Jews intended to destroy the mosque to build a third Temple. He would take statements by rabbinic leaders in Palestine about the Messianic era and pretend that Jews were planning to demolish the structures on the Temple Mount.

This was a powerful message that the antisemitic Arab world eagerly accepted. It was the lie that was at the root of the deadly 1929 massacres of Jews. 

The 1931 Muslim Congress in Jerusalem, led by the Mufti, neatly tied together his lie about the "Jewish designs" on Al Aqsa and his antisemitism, as he banned any Jewish reporters from covering the conference.

In 1967, the lie resumed, even though Israel could have (and should have) taken over complete control of the Temple Mount.

Arab political cartoons continue to push the lie that Israel plans to demolish Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, even though it has had the ability to do that for 54 years.

Every August 21, the lie reaches a fever pitch on the anniversary of the attack on Al Aqsa by mentally ill Australian Christian named Denis Michael Rohan. 

Palestinian Arab media usually flatly lies and says that Rohan was Jewish and that this arson was part of a Zionist plot to destroy Al Aqsa. 

This lie is a reliable means to inflame Arab passions, fueled by Arab antisemitism. It is especially useful when Palestinian leaders want to divert attention from their own failures and their own people's problems, by using their Jew-hatred as a political tool - just as the Mufti did a century ago.

Hamas will hold a mass rally at the Gaza fence tomorrow, using this anniversary as an excuse to fire up Gazans with hate. The Hamas Youth Department issued a statement:

The fires that have been ignited on the walls and sides of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque since 1969 have not yet been extinguished. The smell of black Zionist hatred is still wafting, and their intrigues are still waiting in Al-Aqsa Mosque to implement criminal plans against it, starting with the intention of the occupation to divide the mosque in time and space. up to the idea of ​​demolishing it and erecting their alleged temple in its place.

The fire that was ignited was not, as the occupation claims, actually an anomaly from a crazy person. Rather, it is a systematic policy, and a firm vision adopted by the occupation since the first day that its unclean feet set foot on the pure land of our Jerusalem, so it set its sights on the project of the Judaization of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.

The narrative is that Palestinian "steadfastness" is what has kept the Jews from destroying the buildings so far, so the antisemitism must be stoked to "defend" Al Aqsa from an imaginary threat. 

The entire history of the lie is tied to Jew-hatred. 

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