PA sources said giving up claims to the Temple Mount and handing over control to the 57-member Saudi-based Islamic Conference Organization is conditional on Israel’s agreeing to a final status agreement.
Iran, which is classified as Persian and not an Arab country, is part of the Islamic group.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has opposed agreeing to a new PA state without knowing ahead of time what it would entail.
The PA recently has escalated its propaganda campaign that disassociates the holy site from any connection with Judaism and claims it is solely a Muslim site.
A group of Arabs demonstrated at Shechem Gate in the Old City Thursday morning, shouting anti-Israeli slogans as Jews began celebrating Jerusalem Reunification Day.
Sovereignty over the Temple Mount, based in Jerusalem, has been one of the foundations for a new Arab country that the PA wants following the proposed expulsion of more than half a million Jews from Judea and Samaria, as well as from Jerusalem neighborhoods that were established after the 1967 Six-Day War.
The PA's official website as far back as 2005 rejected the Jewish connection with the Western Wall (Kotel), the remains of the wall that surrounded the Holy Temple area. Muslim legend claims that Mohammed tied his horse to the wall before ascending to heaven, even though the city of Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the Koran.
Writer Daniel Pipes several years offered one million dollars to anyone who can find the name "Jerusalem" explicitly written in the Koran.
The Israeli government initially ignored the PA propaganda campaign, but Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the International Department of the of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, warned in 2005 that the PA claims have “far reaching implications” for Israel.
Rabbi Richman said that the PA’s denial of the Jewish Temple's existence “is part of a campaign to totally eradicate, erase, and destroy all Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem and the land of Israel.”
The PA incitement against Israel, which violates the American Roadmap plan, also attributes the 1929 Arab pogrom to Jewish efforts to claim ownership of the Western Wall.
The Islam Online website Wednesday re-asserted long-standing accusations that archaeological excavations at the Temple Mount are designed to cause a “real and immediate” danger to the Al Aqsa mosque. The latest charges were attributed to Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement’s Galilee branch and who has been arrested several times for incitement against Israel.
Sheikh Salah told the website he is certain Israel has a ”diabolical plan” to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque “in a way that would appear as is happening as a result of natural causes, such as an earthquake."
According to Islam Online, “The Israeli government, in coordination with powerful settler groups, began digging an extensive tunnel network throughout the Old City. Israel describes the tunnels as "tourist projects" that pose no threat to Islamic holy places, [but] Palestinians and some Israeli organizations, including the Israeli Committee against House Demolition, believe that the ultimate goal is to create a subterranean access route to attack Al-Aqsa and other Islamic shrines in the area.”
The northern branch of the Islamic Movement blasted Thursday a proposal for the Palestinian Authority to relinquish sovereignty over the Temple Mount in exchange for international Islamic control of the site.
"The proposal to transfer sovereignty to a third state stems from the attempted to internationalize the Al Aqsa Mosque, and actually this is a proposal whose significance is the continuation of the occupation; therefore, such a proposal must be aggressively rejected," the Israeli Arab group said in a statement.
Palestinian sources have said the PA would accept the management of the site by the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Conference, whose 57 member states include Iran, as part of a final-status peace agreement.
Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement, has called for in the past an intifada to "save" the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits atop the Temple Mount.
The movement's statement continued: "No one has the right to determine the future of the Al Aqsa Mosque, which has Islamic, Arab and Palestinian implications, and full Islamic sovereignty over the mosque will only be implemented when the occupation of Jerusalem and the mosque is lifted,"
The OIC is signatory to the Arab Peace plan, a initiative that would provide the Palestinians with backing from all Muslim states toward a historic compromise with Israel in a peace agreement.
According to the Temple Mount proposal, the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City will be under Israeli sovereignty, while the Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters would be transfered to Palestinian sovereignty. Israel objects to Palestinian sovereignty over the Armenian Quarter.
There is also a dispute building over the Western Wall; the PA plans to demand that Israeli sovereignty applies only to part of the wall.
Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that if Israel opts for peace and has a leader who is willing to make genuine compromises, a peace agreement could be reached within three to six months.
Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced Wednesday that he was canceling his planned visit to Washington next week due to the death of his grandson.
Abbas is expected to meet U.S. President Barack Obama next week. Abu Rudeina said Abbas will ask for clarifications on the U.S. stance on negotiations with Israel.
"During the meetings with U.S. special envoy George Mitchell, we made it clear that there must be an Israeli recognition of the principle of two states for two peoples and a freezing of construction in the settlements," Abu Rudeina said.
"We will hear what happened during the meeting between [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and Obama on the Palestinian question and what the American plans are for the coming months. Abu Mazen [Abbas] will consult with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to formulate a position ahead of the meeting. In any case, the result of the negotiations between Israel and the PA must be clear: the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, whose capital is East Jerusalem," the senior PA official said.
'Israel must accept responsibility for creation of refugee problem'
With regards to the right of return, the Palestinians reiterated their traditional position: Israel must acknowledge responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem.
Abu Rudeina says the Palestinian position on the issue is identical to that of the Arab Peace Initiative: a just and agreed solution to the refugee question, on the basis of UN Resolution 194.
But other Palestinian sources say the PA will probably agree to an arrangement under which refugees will have the right of return to the Palestinian state, with Israel agreeing to absorb up to 100,000 Palestinians within its borders under family reunification.
Regarding borders, Abu Rudeina said that the principle of territorial exchange was agreed, although there are disagreements over the exact areas. He said that in the most recent talks the Palestinians agreed to an exchange involving 1.2 percent of West Bank land, while then prime minister Ehud Olmert demanded 6.5 percent.
"But the issue also depends on quality. If [Israel] receives land in the Jerusalem area or Bethlehem we will not agree to receive desert land in exchange," Abu Rudeina said.
He told Haaretz that the Arab states are willing to agree to peace. "The problem is that now Israel is unwilling. They used to tell us that with Olmert involved in corruption the negotiations can't be completed with him. Now they say Netanyahu will be restricted because of his coalition problems. Every time it's a different story. Perhaps that's why 15 years have passed and we haven't seen peace."
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May 21, 2009
Before putting together the final touches on your anticipated 'Peace Speech' expected to be delivered in Egypt on June 4, 2009, I request of you a moment or two, to read what your fellow legislators had to say in the year 1922. The issue at the time was in respect to the recreation of the Jewish National Home - in the area designated for them by the "Mandate for Palestine," an historical League of Nations document that laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in western Palestine the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law.
Mr. President, political rights to self-determination as a polity for Arabs were guaranteed by the same League of Nations in four other mandates - in Lebanon and Syria [The French Mandate], Iraq, and later Trans-Jordan [The British Mandate]. Reducing any land already granted to the Jewish people under international law, is an injustice and a grievous handicap to the well being of the Jewish State.
Sincerely,
Eli E. Hertz
eli@mythsandfacts.org
The United States Congressional Record
1922 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
National Home for
THE JEWISH PEOPLE JUNE 30, 1922
HOUSE RESOLUTION 360 - UNANIMOUSLY ADOPTED
Congressman Frank Appleby N.J.
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