JEWISH TIES TO JERUSALEM

1-Manhigut Yehudit: PM Olmert is an Accessory to Murder. 2-Jewish ties to Jerusalem

Manhigut Yehudit: PM Olmert is an Accessory to Murder 16:02 Jun 18, '06 / 22 Sivan 5766,by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz - Arutz Sheva (IsraelNationalNews.com)

The Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud released a statement calling anyone involved in last week's transfer of weapons to the Palestinian Authority an accessory to murder. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) "sees the prime minister, the defense minister, the justices of the High Court of Justice, and any officer and soldier involved in the transfer of weapons to the murderer Abu Mazen and his gang as accessories to the murder of Jews," the movement's statement said. Furthermore, Manhigut Yehudit, headed by Moshe Feiglin, declared that it would work towards trying the aforementioned before a court of law when the movement takes over the reigns of power. The Israeli government, through the IDF, transferred 1,050 automatic rifles and one million bullets to the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The weapons reached the Allenby Crossing, on the Jordan-Israel border, as a gift to PA head Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] from the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. Other reports state that the guns are a gift of the United States. IDF forces then transported the weapons from the Jordanians across Israel and handed them over to PA forces at the Erez and Karni crossings into the Gaza Strip. During his visit to Jordanian King Abdullah II earlier this month, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the Jordanian request to transfer the weapons to the PA. The weapons transfer is apparently meant to prop up the militia controlled by Abbas; however, IDF
sources report that the low-level war waged between Fatah and Hamas in the PA indicates that the weapons may not stay in the hands of Abbas-controlled gunmen. A senior member of the terrorist Force 17 aligned with the Fatah movement told WorldNetDaily

[1] that the weapons earmarked for Abbas's personal guard will be used against Israel. Terrorist Abu Yousef told WND that the weapons - some of which, he claims, were delivered to the PA earlier than last week - have already have been used in two shooting attacks, one of which resulted in the death of an Arab whose car was mistaken for that of a Jew. These weapons will not be used in an internal war, but against Israelis, he said. Force 17... will also be the first to lead the Palestinians in the current struggle against Israeli occupation. On Thursday, the High Court of Justice turned down three petitions, one of which was filed by the Almagor terror victims association, asking it to ban the arms shipment to the PA. Prior to its final rendering in the matter, the court turned down an appeal to delay the transfer until it ruled on the petition.

The Hamas terrorist organization also released a statement demanding an explanation as to how the weapons and bullets made their way to Abbas and his men. In light of the violent clashes over power in the Palestinian Authority between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah organization,
Hamas leaders are concerned that the weapons shipment changes the internal balance of power.
On Saturday, Abbas denied that he had received weapons from Israel to shore up his personal militia, but he admitted that general PA forces have been in need of weapons. It is widely assumed that the public reports of Israel's transfer of weapons to Abbas in order to help him fight Hamas have not strengthened his image within the Palestinian Authority public.
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Exploring the Strength Of Jewish Ties to JerusalemBy DANIEL PIPES,June 20,

2006 Historically, the religious standing of Jerusalem for Muslims waxed and waned with political circumstances. In a consistent and predictable cycle repeated six times through 14 centuries, Muslims focused on the city when it served their needs and ignored it when it did not.
This contrast was especially obvious during the past century. British rule over the city, in 1917-48, galvanized a passion for Jerusalem that had been absent during the 400 years of Ottoman control. Throughout the Jordanian control of the walled city, in 1948-67, however, Arabs largely ignored it. For example, Jordanian radio broadcast Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa mosque but from a minor mosque in Amman.

The Palestine Liberation Organization's founding document, the Palestinian National Covenant,
which dates from 1964, contains no mention of Jerusalem.Muslim interest in the city revived only with the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967. Jerusalem then became the focal point of Arab politics, serving to unify fractious elements. In 1968, the PLO amended its covenant to call Jerusalem "the seat of the Palestine Liberation Organization." The king of Saudi Arabia himself declared the city religiously "just like" Mecca - a novel, if not a blasphemous, idea.

By 1990, the Islamic focus on Jerusalem reached such a surreal intensity that Palestinian Arabs evolved from celebrating Jerusalem to denying the city's sacred and historical importance to Jews. The Palestinian Arab establishment - scholars, clerics, and politicians - promoted this unlikely claim by constructing a revisionist edifice made up in equal parts of fabrication, falsehood, fiction, and fraud. It erases all Jewish connections to the land of Israel, replacing them with a specious Palestinian-Arab connection. Palestinian Arabs now claim that Canaanites built Solomon's Temple, that the ancient Hebrews were Bedouin tribesmen, the Bible came from Arabia, the Jewish Temple "was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem," the Jewish presence in Palestine ended in 70 C.E., and today's Jews are descendants of the Khazar Turks. Yasser Arafat himself created a nonexistent Canaanite king, Salem, out of thin air, speaking movingly about this fantasy Palestinian Arab "forefather.

Palestinian Media Watch sums up this process: By turning Canaanites and Israelites into Arabs and the Judaism of ancient Israel into Islam, the Palestinian Authority "takes authentic Jewish history, documented by thousands of years of continuous literature, and crosses out the word 'Jewish' and replaces it with the word 'Arab.The political implication is clear: Jews lack any rights to Jerusalem. As a street banner puts it: "Jerusalem is Arab." Jews are unwelcome.
Three key events, Yitzhak Reiter of the Hebrew University argues, transformed this self-indulgent mythology into official ideology:

* The Temple Mount Faithful incident of October 1990 saw a Jewish group's unsuccessful effort to lay the cornerstone for the Third Temple, leading to a Muslim riot in which 17 rioters lost their lives. This episode increased Palestinian Arab apprehensions about the demolishing of Islamic sanctities, prompting a drive to prove that Jerusalem has always been a Muslim and Palestinian Arab city.

* The Oslo accord of September 1993 placed Jerusalem, for the first time, on the table for negotiation. Palestinian Arabs responded by attempting to discredit Jewish connections to the city.

* The Camp David summit of July 2000 saw the Israeli government, again for the first time, put forward its demands for sovereignty over parts of the Temple Mount. As Dennis Ross, an American diplomat present at the summit, astringently put it, Arafat "never offered any substantive ideas, not once" at the talks. However, "He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn't exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus." With this, Jerusalem's pseudo-history became formal Palestinian Authority policy.

Palestinian Arab denial of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem has two likely long-term implications. First, it suggests that the Palestinian Arab focus on Jerusalem has reached such a fervor that it might now sustain itself regardless of politics, thereby breaking a 14-century pattern. Jerusalem appears to have developed into an abiding Muslim interest, one generating feelings of entitlement no longer related to utilitarian considerations.

Second, this denial severely diminishes the prospect of a diplomatic resolution. The Palestinian Arabs' self-evidently false history alienates their Israeli interlocutors even as it lays claim to sole rights over the entire city. As a result, future negotiations over Jerusalem are bound to be yet more emotional, askew, and difficult than past ones.

Mr. Pipes (http://www.danielpipes.org/) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures" (Transaction Publishers). His writings on Jerusalem may be found at www.danielpipes.org/blog/614.