…EXTRA! EXTRA!… Allah and Mohamed both advocate Jewish authority over Jerusalem!…

America, the Land of The Free and Home of the Brave…the birthplace of “exceptionalism”.  Some mock her greatness, while others come to take advantage of her kindness.  Some come and assume that her people are naive, taking advantage of American generosity and civility to peddle nonsensical ideas based on false history.  If it sounds as though I have a particular axe to grind, you’d be right.  I’m tired of listening to Palestinian apologists who use their bullhorn in America to advertise their distorted view of the past/present/future status of the Middle East, particularly as it relates to Jerusalem.  Case in point, this week, our fair city, Omaha, NE had the “honor” of hosting Mr. Maen Rashid Areikat, along with his ostensibly peaceful views about Palestinian/Israeli relations.  Mr. Areikat is the Director-General at the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiations Affairs Department (which provides policy and legal advice to Palestinian negotiators) and a close advisor to Mahmoud Abbas and the Chief Representative of the PLO Delegation to the United States.

If Benjamin Netanyahu believes that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”, he’s clearly not met Mr. Areikat, a man for whom the phrase may have been coined.

Why do the Palestinians, including Mr. Areikat, continue to demand control of Jerusalem, when it’s abundantly clear that the Islamic god, Allah, his prophet Mohamed and the second Caliphate, Omar, didn’t intend it for Muslims in the first place?

Jewish authority over Jerusalem should come as no surprise to anyone, particularly Muslims, since it’s been acknowledged in the Koran since the very beginning.   The Koran tells us in Surah 2: 144-147 of Allah’s ‘gift’ of Mecca, to Mohamed.  In this passage, we find Mohamed pouting that he was being mocked by the Jews for making use of their city, Jerusalem, as a focus of worship.  He couldn’t (and didn’t) deny Jewish authority over Jerusalem, he was just fuming that Islam had no place of its own…but that was an unfortunate situation that he…I mean…ah…Allah… intended to remedy posthaste.  You see, Mohamed had already pinched nearly every other vestige of Jewish and Christian tradition (though all were effectively distorted once amalgamated with Islam), he felt all was complete, but for a “Holy City”.  Luckily for Mohamed, Allah was willing to let him rub the lamp one more time…and his wish was granted (no, don’t be silly, Mohamed didn’t really rub a lamp…after all, who really believes in Genies?).  How was this actually accomplished?  It’s said that Allah sent the angel Gabriel to ‘re-orient’ the posterior of a worshiper during prayers, rightly pointing him toward Mecca.  Luckily for all involved, Mohamed immediately recognized that Allah meant ‘Mecca’ and not Zanzibar, which was in the same direction…but a few thousand miles further.  Think what you will, but no one can say Mohamed wasn’t a sharp individual.

Not only did Allah and Mohamed show clear deference for the Jewish claim to Jerusalem, but so did Omar “the Conqueror”, the most powerful and influential Caliphate in Islamic history.  Omar, the second Caliphate of Islam, may be best known as the one who conquered Jerusalem.  One little known fact is that, while he did conquer Jerusalem, he then tried to re-populate the city with Jews by repatriating them from the Arabian Peninsula to their chosen homeland, Jerusalem.   Clearly, Omar knew that Jerusalem was a city for the Jews, providing them residence in a city they hadn’t seen since the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.   Omar constructed a small mosque in Jerusalem, allowing him the ability to defend Jerusalem from the Romans, but otherwise granted Jews authority over their spiritual and ancestral homeland, knowing it was theirs in the first place.  Even Omar knew that the Jewish claim to Jerusalem transcended over five centuries of exile.

So, this ‘breaking news’ forces us to beg the question…why, oh why, do the Palestinians, represented by those such as Mr. Areikat, feel that they have some divine right to Jerusalem?  Based on the Koran, Islam clearly has no spiritual (or otherwise) authority over Jerusalem.  Not even Mohamed’s magic pony ride to Jerusalem could compel him to believe that he, or Islam, had any claim to the Jewish holy city.   One does have to wonder however, how could Allah, in his divine wisdom and omnipotence, have forgotten to tell Mohamed toward which city he was to pray?

In our next installment we’ll continue to expound on the lack of Islamic or Palestinian claim to Jerusalem.  We’ll bring the story forward to the ‘modern era’ beginning in 1948.  We’ll explore the true identity of the ‘Palestinians’ and see who they really are and why any claim they make for Jerusalem as their capitol should have been made against Jordan, if they expected their claim to have any legitimacy.  In the meantime, we welcome any questions from Mr. Areikat or his people, the Palestinians, regarding Islamic history and its claims (or lack thereof) to Jerusalem.

-Dr. Mark Christian