Washington – The Obama administration is strongly condemning a Palestinian official’s claim that the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem has no religious significance for Jews and is actually Muslim property.
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The State Department said Tuesday that the U.S. the rejects the comments as “factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative.” Spokesman P.J. Crowley said statements of that kind damage U.S. efforts to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and could incite violence. He said neither side should do anything to prejudice the negotiations.
Last week, a senior Palestinian official endorsed a study stating that the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, is Muslim property and has no link to Judaism. The study has drawn fierce criticism in Israel.
He says it but still doesn’t say it. He could have ended with “that the U.S. rejects the comments as factually incorrect”; but instead had to play the game that it damages the peace talks and prejudices the negotiations, meaning to say that if not that, then it would be ok for the Arabs to rewrite history.
Their denial of Jewish history is at the root of the conflict. Until the Arabs don’t admit the ancient, medieval and modern Jewish presence in Israel, there is no one to talk to. I expected better from a United States spokesman.
We should finally bring up the Sephardi refugee issue too
Zay ken shlugen kop oif an anderen vant.
The idiots in the administration don’t really get it. What’s the difference between this nonsense claim vs. all the others? The Arabs have no real claim on anything. If they won’t live in peace, they have to go. Did the administration say anything about Kever Rochel? The Arabs claim it all.
Talk is cheap, if they really believed it they would tell the Arabs Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem are Jewish so forget and claims you may have!
It’s a mystery why any Israeli government would ever offer to sit at the same table –
(let alone agree to subject its people-who-happen-to-be-Jewish to a sadistic charade like exchanging land for a pot-of-phoney-promises process)
– with people who openly despise every Jew; whose goal is to erase Jewish history and to have all Eretz Israel, Heaven forbid! ; who quote the genocidal rhetoric of Mein Kampf; who never miss an opportunity to engage in Jew-baiting – and worse.