In two separate articles, on its US and UK sites, the International Business Times distorts history and facts regarding Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
On its US site, an IBT headline makes the bizarre and false claim: “Israel Wants Jews To Pray At Muslim Mosque In Jerusalem.”
John Walsh writes that “Some Israeli lawmakers want to allow Jews to pray at an Islamic holy site in Jerusalem,” disregarding Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, the site of the two ancient Jewish temples. Israeli lawmakers don’t want Jews to pray at an Islamic holy site – the third holiest site in Islam – they want Jews to be able to pray at the holiest site in Judaism.
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The article claims “worshipers of the Jewish faith wishing to pray at the the Temple Mount complex can do so in the Western Wall plaza, but not in the Al-Aqsa mosque itself.” Of course it should go without saying that Jews have no desire to pray inside the mosque, but rather at the Temple Mount compound, where their temples stood.
Regarding UNESCO’s resolutions that only refer to the site as holy to Muslims, Walsh describes this as “erasing possible Jewish and Christian roots to the historical site.” Is Walsh endorsing UNESCO’s rewrite of history?
Meanwhile in an article on the IBT’s UK site, Orlando Crowcroft and Julian Kossoff write that if president-elect Trump were to keep his promise to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, this could potentially trigger a “crisis of Biblical proportions” as it “would outrage Israel’s Arab neighbours, as well as the entire Muslim world.”
Both Palestinians and Israelis consider Jerusalem their capital. Until 1967 the city – holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians – was divided between the western Jewish half and the eastern side, including all the major religious shrines, controlled by Jordan.
This omits some key context though, as in fact the only reason Jordan controlled the eastern side was because they captured it and the West Bank in the 1948 War of Independence, when Arab nations tried to destroy the newly established Jewish state. Jordan annexed the territories and expelled all the Jews, preventing them from access to their holiest sites in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Just like in the US site article, Crowcroft and Kossoff also get it wrong on the Temple Mount. They write that “Right wing Zionists have increasingly pressed for the rights to pray on the now Muslim sanctuary but believed to be the site of the First and Second Temples of the biblical era.” Although they acknowledge “believed” links to the Temples, it is still misleading to refer to it as the “now Muslim sanctuary,” as even though there is now a mosque there, this does not change the fact that the Temple Mount compound itself is still the holiest site in Judaism.
Unlike the impression given by the IBT, Jews are not looking to pray at a mosque, Islamic holy site, or Muslim sanctuary. If anything it is Palestinians who try to erase Jewish connections to Israel, their most recent attempt being to try to claim as their own the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Hebrew texts from the time of the Second Temple. Without properly acknowledging and explaining the history of the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, the IBT is leaving out crucial context towards understanding the history and nuances of the conflict.
HonestReporting has contacted the IBT US to change their headline. Watch this space.
