Challenge Netanyahu’s Claims on Palestinian Land

By : Ali Farkhan Tsani, Senior Editor of MINA News Agency

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his weekly meeting on Sunday underground, inside the Al-Buraq Wall tunnel, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem.

At the meeting, Netanyahu expressed a one-sided claim that it was the remains of the Temple Mount, where King Solomon built the First Temple of the Jewish people.

He also stated that Jerusalem (Al-Quds) was the capital of the Jews 1,100 years before London became the capital of England, 1,800 years before Paris became the capital of France, and 2,800 years before Washington DC became the capital of the United States.

Netanyahu and his hardline cabinet are inflamed, hearing the speech of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations on the First Commemoration of Nakba Day at the international institution, Monday, May 15, 2023.

For the first time in history, the UN General Assembly commemorated Nakba Day to remember the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and lands in 1948, after the unilateral creation of the State of Israel.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution on 30 November 2022, and called for the 75th anniversary of Nakba Day to be observed at the UN on 15 May 2023.

Abbas declared in that impassioned speech, challenging the most common Zionist claim that Palestine is a land without a people (Palestine) and should be given to a people without a land (Jews) (أرض بلا شعب لشعب بلا أرض).

He stressed that the true statement is the historical homeland of Palestine, it has never been a land without other people, and it cannot be given unfairly and aggressively to those who claim they are people without land.

In fact, with this encouragement, Mahmoud Abbas formally asked the UN, and in accordance with international law and international legitimacy resolutions, to oblige Israel to implement all UN resolutions, or to suspend Israel’s membership in the UN.

“I must mention here, the report issued by the Council of the League of Nations in 1930, regarding property rights in the Al-Buraq Wall, which is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This report confirms and with the agreement of all witnesses, including Jewish clerics, that the ownership of the Al-Buraq Wall and Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Al-Aqsa Mosque) belongs to the Islamic Waqf alone,” he said.

“The one ultimate truth that we are calling out to the whole world, which represents the roots of the Palestinian people’s narrative, is that we own the rights, we have been here since the beginning of history and we will remain here until the end of the world,” he said.

Responding to Netanyahu’s claim, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry in its latest statement on Tuesday said, “an extension of the campaign of escalation practiced by the Israeli government will only create chaos, tension and new violence in the arena of conflict.”

The statement also criticized the Israeli government holding its weekly meetings in the tunnel under Bab Al-Buraq, Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, occupied Jerusalem city, as an integral part of efforts to annex and Judaize Jerusalem, and want to completely separate it from the Palestinian environment.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced its rejection of “any decision adopted by the Israeli government in this provocative meeting”.

“All acts and declarations of occupation of Jerusalem are null and void, and do not confer any right on Israel to annex Jerusalem or sovereignty over it,” the statement continued.

Palestinian factions also voted in unison, condemning Netanyahu’s cabinet meeting.

A faction of the Hamas resistance movement described the move as a “dangerous escalation of the religious war waged by the occupation of the Holy City.” As reported by Al-Araby on Monday.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said, “This step of Judaization is an attempt to falsify the identity of the city of Jerusalem, which is a blatant aggression against our people and our nation.”

“Our Palestinian people will continue the legitimate struggle to defend their Arab identity and the Islamic city of Jerusalem,” he said.

Another faction, the Islamic Jihad, which recently successfully launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, stressed that the meeting would not change anything from the status of Al-Aqsa.

A member of the Islamic Jihad political bureau, Ahmad al-Mudallal, said, “it does not mean that an extremist government can impose its sovereignty over Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa or change anything from the status of the mosque among Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.”

On the contrary, all this will escalate the state of conflict and set the axis of confrontation on the Palestinian land, and will accelerate other movements.

Al-Mudallal added that the next battle will be unbearable for the Israeli occupation, because “it will be a regional religious battle.”

This is the second time since 2017 that the Israeli government is holding weekly meetings inside the tunnel that stretches from the Al-Buraq Wall to Al-Aqsa Mosque, to celebrate the 56th anniversary of the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.

Security Minister Ben Gvir’s raid

Netanyahu’s claim began with the provocative action of the hardline Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who stormed the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, accompanied by dozens of Jewish illegal settlers, sparking Palestinian and Arab criticism.

Ben Gvir’s attack on the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was criticized by Palestine and Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, three countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Even the United States Department of Foreign Affairs itself expressed concern over Ben Gvir’s provocative attack, calling it inflammatory rhetoric.

The US State Department statement said the sacred site should not be used for political purposes, and that Washington asked all parties to respect the sanctity of the site.

With Netanyahu’s claims at his weekly meeting in the tunnel of the Al-Buraq Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem on Sunday, it appears that the hardline Israeli government intends to further expand the annexation and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank as a priority list.

Netanyahu, in order to cover up his defeat and his inability to manage his country, in the midst of corrupt finances, in the midst of large-scale demonstrations of its citizens every week (it has entered its 20th week), in the midst of legal cases that ensnared him so that he had to intervene in the judiciary and in the midst of his defeat in the face of barrage of rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters from the Gaza Strip in the last few days.

Netanyahu, with all his arrogance and helplessness, intends to show the Israeli people that he is a person who can be relied upon in difficult times and in historical times.

Return to Palestine

If we return to the main issue, the Palestinian land that Netanyahu claims as his own, under the pretext that it is the land promised by his God, and the claim of the Temple of Solomon under the Al-Aqsa Mosque, their ritual site. So all of this has been refuted by Jewish historians themselves, through evidence from the empirical research they have conducted.

These claims are only a sign of fear and concern that they actually feel they will be defeated by the Muslims, and they will be expelled from the Palestinian territories.

Some of the Jewish religious leaders themselves believed that one day, they, the Jews, would be defeated by the Muslims. Secretly, they believe in the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad that Al-Aqsa will return to the lap of Muslims, Palestine will be free, and the Jews will return to being expelled as the diaspora was before.

Jewish leaders have read one of the hadiths, “There will not be apocalypse until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind rocks or trees, those rocks and trees say: ‘O Muslim, O servant of Allah, the Jews are in behind me, come and kill him.’ Except for the gharqad tree, (he doesn’t speak) because he is from a Jewish tree.” (HR Bukhari and Muslim).

So that their leaders, among other things, encouraged their citizens to plant gharqad trees in their yards.

They have predicted that the struggle of Muslims in liberating Al-Aqsa and liberating Palestine will receive assistance from many parties. Including natural objects that exist on earth, such as trees and rocks will also show the hiding places of the Jews. Aren’t they afraid that they have to cut down, dismantle and burn olive trees? Don’t the young Palestinian fighters rely on stone catapults to face the Israeli Zionist steel tanks?

Of course, it becomes a belief for believers in God’s promises, as stated in the Al-Quran. “Then we gave you a turn to beat them back and we helped you with wealth and children and we made you a bigger group.” (QS Al-Isra [17]: 6).

That is the confirmation from Allah and His Messenger, that Muslims will definitely be able to defeat the Jewish Zionists who currently control the Aqsa Mosque and colonize Palestine. Allah is the Greatest! Al-Aqsa Haqquna !! (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)