This was an ad-lib; it was not in his prepared speech. One could perhaps dismiss that as a rant of an 87 year old man on the verge of senility. Certainly the world media didn't bother to even report on this absurd claim.
But the much younger, Western-educated prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammad Shtayyeh, has outdone Abbas at his weekly cabinet meeting today.
In his opening statement, Shtayyeh - who has a doctorate in economics from the University of Sussex - said, "the Israeli occupation's sovereignty over Jerusalem is alleged, and its narrative is forged, not based on history, antiquities, or any scientific or objective input."
The holy city is mentioned hundreds of times in Hebrew scriptures, and thousands of times more in Jewish prayers, poems and rabbinic literature. Jerusalem is one of the central components of Judaism. And, yes, the scientific and historic evidence for Jews living in Jerusalem and for the Temple being on the Temple Mount are overwhelming and irrefutable.
Denying a Jewish connection to Judaism is to deny Judaism itself, and it profoundly antisemitic.
And this is the official policy and talking point of the Palestinian leadership.
This proves, yet again, that the fundamental tenet of Palestinianism is antisemitism. The Palestinian claim to the land, and especially to Jerusalem but also to Judea and Samaria, is based on denying, denigrating and marginalizing millennia of Jewish history and belief.
This isn't Islam. Muslims freely admitted the connection of Jews to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount before Zionism. This is a new historical revisionism - Jerusalem denial - that is particular to Palestinians and those who support the Palestinian positions.
Trying to rip Jerusalem out of Jewish belief and history is a denial of Judaism itself. And Shtayyeh has proven that mainstream Palestinian nationalism is nothing less than old fashioned Jew-hatred dressed up in modern clothing.
