PA: ‘The Muslims have absolute right’ to Western Wall

PA TV: ‘The Muslims have absolute right to it and there isn’t even one rock there that dates back to period of King Solomon, as Jews claim.’

Palestinian Media Watch reports the official Palestinian Authority television narrator’s claim that “the historical documents in the possession of the Palestinians of Jerusalem testify that Jerusalem is a city of Arab origin for thousands of years, and its history and culture are Islamic. Since Islam’s conquest [in the 7th century], the Al-Buraq Wall (i.e., the Western Wall) has remained an Islamic waqf.

“The Muslims have the absolute right to it and there is not even one rock there that dates back to the period of King Solomon, as the Jews claim.”

Muslims believe Muhammad took a night flight 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.”

The Western Wall is a small remnant of the large retaining wall built by King Herod to support the Temple Mount of the Second Temple. It is not connected to Solomon’s Temple as PA TV claims. There are no known remains of the First Temple itself, but many artifacts from the First Temple period including many stamps with the names of Biblical figures have been found in the vicinity of the Western Wall and the City of David in Jerusalem.

The Temple Mount including the Western Wall is Judaism’s holiest site. The Israeli Antiquities Authority does not carry out archaeological excavations on or under the Temple Mount itself for fear of offending Muslim sensitivities.