Palestinians have paid a hefty price for claims and fables by Zionist politicians and writers in the early 20th Century as hundreds of thousands Palestinians were forced out of their homeland and thousands more killed. The Zionist media machine is still in full force to control the remainder of land so as to destroy the dream of Palestinian statehood even after launching the peace process and the Oslo Accord, of 1993 as settlements have increased more than any time before.
The city of Jerusalem has been directly targeted by this campaign as consecutive Israeli governments and Zionist organisations have altered the civil and cultural aspect of the Arab city in a systematic operation of cleansing. In the duration allowing the erection of settlements and bringing in settlers from all over the world, providing them with high living standards at the expense of the Palestinians whom most live under the poverty line and who suffer from systemic restrictions of rights, expulsion, demolition of homes and control thereof, as well as restrictions on constructing new homes to alleviate the shortage in housing crisis.
The Islamic sites have also fallen prey to Zionist media plunders as cemeteries have been bulldozed, such as the Ma’man Allah historic cemetery upon whose ruins a ‘Peace Museum’ was built. Intense steps are also underway to control al-Aqsa Mosque (Haram al-Sharif) so as to build the so-called “Temple”. Excavations under al-Aqsa have been intensified, threatening the existing and surrounding structures. Israel has also launched government backed programmes entitled, “Ascending to Temple Mt.” that allow Israelis to storm al-Aqsa grounds to perform prayers, whereas it imposes restrictions on Palestinians who wish to perform their religious rights.
The Israeli occupation has launched many projects directed at undermining al-Aqsa in an attempt to impose temporal and spatial division. That in turn prevents Palestinians from entering the Mosque at certain times where the Israelis are allowed in under extreme military guard so as to perform their prayers – a matter that was severely opposed by the Palestinians, leading to al-Aqsa Uprising in which the Palestinians suffered huge losses.
The Israeli government is well aware of the importance of Jerusalem and its historic and religious lore to the Palestinians. It has not learnt from past catastrophes that were a direct consequence of its plans to undermine the importance of al-Aqsa throughout its occupation thereof. The Israeli government is found to be insistent on igniting a religious war in the region emanating from the occupied city of Jerusalem.
