Despite International Support, Palestinian Authority Incites Hate, Wants ‘Islamic Awakening’ to ‘Save’ Al-Aqsa
Palestinian protestors walk around during clashes with Israeli security forces at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City April 22, 2022. REUTERS/Ammar Awad
During a sermon on official Palestinian Authority (PA) TV, a preacher called on Allah to “remove” Israel and “purify the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings” — i.e., the entire Temple Mount — the holiest place for Jews.
Official PA TV has broadcast many sermons with similar content:
Official PA TV sermon: “O Allah, remove this occupier, and make them disappear from this land. O Allah, purify the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings. O Allah, restore its sanctity and purity, and remove this occupation.”
[Official PA TV, Dec. 6, 2024]
Earlier this year, the same preacher called on Allah to “liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and “purify the land from the filth” of Israelis:
Official PA TV sermon: “O Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings soon. O Allah, purify our land of the filth of the occupiers. O Allah, remove them, O Master of the Universe.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 18, 2024]
For decades, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has exposed how the PA libel that Israel is seeking to “destroy” the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim holy sites has been a key motivator for Palestinian terror. This is combined with antisemitic statements that the Jewish presence at the Temple Mount is “defiling” the holy site.
Feeling abandoned by some Arab states’ normalization agreements with Israel, the PA continues to claim that the dangers to the mosque are real and to turn to the Islamic nations for help.
Meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash discussed “ways to strengthen the Islamic cooperation on everything related to providing political and material aid to Palestine, its leadership, and its people.”
Al-Habbash specified the alleged “dangers” to the Islamic holy sites:
We must concentrate and unify the Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic efforts to defend the holy religious sites in Palestine, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is being subjected to serious violations by the occupation [i.e., Israeli] authorities and the terrorist colonialist gangs, in order to change its historical and legal status and impose Israeli control on it.”
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Dec. 9, 2024]
Al-Habbash also met with Malaysian Minister of Religious Affairs Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, with whom he discussed “ways to cooperate to protect the holy sites and religious values in Palestine and the entire world in accordance with the basic principles anchored by Islam.”
He stressed that the protection of the Islamic and Christian holy sites and the prevention of “a religious conflict that will threaten all of humanity” require “the Islamic nation and the whole world”:
Al-Habbash briefed the Malaysian minister… about the Israeli violations at the Islamic and Christian holy sites in the holy city [of Jerusalem], and specifically at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque – which requires the Islamic nation and the whole world to set out with determination against these dangerous attacks before they lead to igniting a religious conflict that will threaten all of humanity. He held the occupation state [i.e., Israel] and those who stand alongside it in its aggression fully responsible for the consequences of its crimes.
[WAFA, official PA news agency, Dec. 10, 2024]
Al-Habbash has specified numerous times that Jews have “no rights” on the Temple Mount:
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a pure Islamic right. It is an exclusive Islamic waqf for Muslims, and it is an exclusive right of the Muslims… At the UN podium, [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas spoke explicitly about the Muslims’ legal claim to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and [said] that non-Muslims have no right to it …
[Israel] knows that it has no right to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that the Jews have no right to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. But they are only fanning the fire of hostility and the fire of religious war… The duty lies on the Islamic nation and the Arabs in general, with the governments, regimes, states, bodies, religious and popular sources of authority and [all] the peoples, to participate in defending the noble Al-Aqsa Mosque, starting with coming to it… and ending with liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque by all possible means [i.e., including terror].”
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 1, 2024]
Al-Habbash’s call for violence against Israel from Muslim states echoes a recent similar call for “an Islamic awakening” by Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the “dangers”:
Zaki said that the dangers surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque requires “an Islamic awakening” to save it, and that the responsibility to defend the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from the dangers surrounding it is laid on all the Muslims worldwide and not on the Palestinians alone.
[Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki, Facebook page, Oct. 26, 2024]
The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.
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