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Abbas’ advisor invents Palestinian history: Palestinians have been on this land for 6,000 years, we were here “before Judaism, Christianity and Islam... Peace will begin with the removal of Israel from the occupied Palestinian land”

Official PA TV News, broadcast of a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting held in Khan Al-Ahmar, a site where Bedouins have constructed illegal structures on state land

Supreme Shari’ah Judge, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor on Religious and Islamic Affairs, and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Today, here, we remember 6,000 years of Palestinianness of this land. Six thousand years since the Arab Canaanites built the city of Jerusalem (sic., the Canaanites were not Arabs), even before our forefather Abraham reached this land. We were here not only before the settlements, we were here before Israel, and we were even here before the Jewish religion, before Judaism, before Christianity, and before Islam. The Palestinians were here and will remain here, and the foreigners will leave. We are not foreigners, but rather they are the foreigners who have come from all over the world - come to steal a land that is not theirs, and to uproot a people that refuses to be uprooted from its land. We are here. On behalf of the Christian Palestinians whom I am honored to sit among, and on behalf of the Palestinian Muslims whom I am honored to be one of, and with me here are dozens of Shari’ah judges, imams, and religious scholars who have come with one voice, hand in hand with their Christian brothers, in order to say that the Palestinian people is united in dealing with the occupation and united in resisting oppression… The… call is to the Israeli people – do you want peace? Peace will begin with you leaving here. Peace will begin with the removal of Israel from the occupied Palestinian land and with the transfer of all of the land of occupied Palestine, and primarily Jerusalem with all of its details and contours - the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall of the Temple Mount) - which will be transferred to the independent Palestinian state, as it is responsible for protecting the holy sites.”

Khan Al-Ahmar is a site where Palestinian Bedouins have illegally erected dwellings and a school, mostly simple shacks, on land in Area C (i.e., land under full Israeli administration according to the Oslo Accords). The Israeli authorities have ordered the demolition of these structures and offered alternative sites for them. A number of petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court against the demolition orders have been considered and then rejected by the court. As of July 17, 2018, the illegally constructed buildings have not been demolished. During July 2018, Palestinians have held protests, some which turned violent, against the demolition at the site.

Islam's Prophet Muhammad is said to have rode during his Night Journey from Mecca to "al aqsa mosque", i.e., "the farthest mosque" (Quran, Sura 17), and there tied his miraculous flying steed named Al-Buraq to a "stone" or a "rock." (Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Book 47, Hadith 3424). In the 1920's, Arab Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini decided to identify the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem as that "rock" or "stone," and since then Muslims refer to the Western Wall as the "Al-Buraq Wall."

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