BICOM

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday harshly condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for a speech in which he claimed that Israel is “trying to erase the Arab, Muslim, and Christian nature of Jerusalem”.

Netanyahu characterised Abbas’ speech, which was given yesterday at a conference in Qatar, as “harshly inflammatory”.

“This is a harshly inflammatory speech from someone who claims that he is bent on peace. The time has come for the Palestinian leadership to stop denying the past and distorting reality. For thousands of years Jerusalem has been the eternal capital of the Jewish People. Jerusalem, under Israeli sovereignty, will continue to be open to believers of all faiths. There is freedom of worship for all and Israel will continue to carefully maintain the holy places of all religions.”

Abbas said Israel was “deluding itself that it is capable of replacing the mosques and the Muslim history in Jerusalem with fairy tales, by which they seek to invent a history that will wipe out the religious and historical facts of Jerusalem.” Abbas also compared Israel’s control of Jerusalem to the Roman and Crusader occupations of the city and accused Israel of trying to harm the al-Aqsa mosque. In September last year, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, Abbas incensed Israel when he appeared to dismiss any Jewish historical connection to Israel

The International Conference for the Defence of Jerusalem was organised by Qatar and attended by representatives from Arab, Islamic and other countries.At the conference, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani said that the Arab League would request from the UN Security Council to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate “Israel’s crimes in Jerusalem”.