Thursday, October 25, 2007

Will repeating a lie often enough change the truth?

So two months later and still no Internet at home. This doesn't mean that I haven't got loads and loads to say.

I'll start with this headline that I saw today on Jpost: 'Western Wall was never part of temple'

This is a claim that was already repeated by Yasser Arafat, most notoriously during the failed Camp David talks in the summer of 2000. If I remember correctly, he stated that the Western Wall was never holy for Jews, the only thing it had of importance was that Mohammed tied his donkey to that wall on his way to Al-Aksa. Baloney.
Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Quran, while it is mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible.

"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the
mosque," he said. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the
history of the Hebrews."


Correction:
No one claims the wall used to be part of the Jewish temple (other than some ignorant journalists). The Temple was built on a flat surface. But that area is called Temple mount, which means that there are mountains there. So before building the temple, they built a flat surface. The Western Wall is one of the supporting walls of that flat surface. Not a remainder of the Temple. Both temples have been completely destroyed. Jews are not supposed to step where the Temple used to be until a new one is built, so this is the closest Jews can get to the Temple.
That there is not a single stone with any relation to Jewish history is ridiculous. The Wakf has repeatedly dug up old archaeological remains of Judaism and destroyed them.
If they destroyed them, it means they existed, no?
But obviously, if the Wakf took the time and effort to destroy old archaeological proof of Jewish presence preceding Muslim presence, it's because they want to convince everyone that Jews didn't exist there before. That Jerusalem was never important to the Jews, only to the Muslims, and that from forever and always.
Wrong.

"Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple,
but they dug there and they found nothing," Sabri added.


Wrong again.
It's the other way around you see. Islamists try (and have succeeded) to convince the Muslim masses that Jerusalem is of massive importance to their religion, but in fact it is not. It is never mentioned in the Quran. The only thing coming vaguely close is Mohammed's dream in which he drifts to "the furthest mosque" (Al-Quds). He never really stepped in Jerusalem, and nothing really links that location in his dream (which he had in the 7th century) to the Temple mount, where King Solomon built the first Temple in 10th century BC.

How can you negotiate with people like this about such an important subject when you can't even agree on the truth?
How can we ever agree on what the truth is when for years they have been destroying evidence to our truth?
Why would anyone believe that they actually want anything closely resembling peace with us?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back!
I invite you to read a satire on this very subject at this address:
http://israelisatirelab.blogspot.com/2007/10/its-news-its-satire-no-its-palestinians.html
Actually I wrote a few pieces on this.
Perhaps you will enjoy them.