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Please take time to read it.

Myths of the
Middle East
?

ї 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

I've been quiet since Israel erupted in fighting spurred by disputes
over the Temple Mount.

Until now, I haven't even bothered to say, "See, I told you so." But I
can't resist any longer. I feel
compelled to remind you of the column I wrote just a couple weeks before
the latest uprising.
<http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/20000818_xcbtl_jerusalemb.shtml>
Yeah, folks, I
predicted it. That's OK. Hold your applause.

After all, I wish I had been wrong. More than 80 people have been killed
since the current fighting
in and around Jerusalem began. And for what?

If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a
homeland and Muslims
want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?

Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the
Middle East dodging more
than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that
these are just phony excuses for
the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.

Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was
no serious movement for a
Palestinian homeland?

"Well, Farah," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the
West Bank and Old
Jerusalem."

That's true. In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East
Jerusalem. But they didn't
capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from
Jordan's King Hussein. I can't
help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their
national identity after Israel
won the war.

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The
first time the name was
used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews,
smashed the
Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on,
the Romans promised, it
would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines,
a Goliathian people
conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to
add insult to injury. They
also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that
had even less staying
power.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous
entity. It was ruled alternately
by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and,
briefly, by the British
after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the
land to the Jewish people as their
homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct
Palestinian culture. There has
never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians.
Palestinians are Arabs,
indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians,
Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep
in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands.
Israel represents one-tenth of
1 percent of the landmass.

But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is
ultimately what the fighting in Israel is
about today. Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land
concessions the
Israelis make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.

Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal
truth from anyone else in the
international media. It's just not politically correct.

I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome
of the Rock in
Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites."

Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions
Mecca hundreds of times. It
mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good
reason. There is no
historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims
today cite a vague passage
in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It
relates that in a dream or a
vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the
temple that is most remote,
whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. ..."
In the seventh century,
some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being
in Mecca and
Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets
-- myth, fantasy, wishful
thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the
days of Abraham.

The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader
Ariel Sharon tried to visit the
Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon. It is the
holiest site for Jews. Sharon
and his entourage were met with stones and threats. I know what it's
like. I've been there. Can you
imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically
kept out of the holiest site in
Judaism?

So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? Well, frankly, I don't
think there is a man-made
solution to the violence. But, if there is one, it needs to begin with
truth. Pretending will only lead to
more chaos. Treating a 5,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming
historical and
archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and
wants gives diplomacy and
peacekeeping a bad name.