"Palestinians" Want Western Wall as Part of Any Settlement*

By BENNY AVNI
Staff Reporter of the Sun
October 12, 2007

UNITED NATIONS — As an American-hosted Middle East summit approaches,
"palestinian" Arabs are hardening their positions: An aide to the
"palestinian authority" president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that
the "palestinians" will demand sole Arab control over Judaism's holiest
site in Jerusalem, the Western Wall.

Mr. Abbas's adviser on religious affairs, Adnan al-Husseini, made the
new demand in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv,
sparking an outcry from many Israeli politicians who complained that
recent reports about the Olmert government's proposal to transfer
Arab-dominated neighborhoods in Jerusalem to the jurisdiction of a
"palestinian state" have led to further Arab demands.

As the last remnant of the ancient Second Temple, which was destroyed
by the Romans in the year 70 of the common era, the Western Wall, also
known as the Wailing Wall, is considered Judaism's holiest site.
Muslims, who call it Al-Burak, also venerate it as the place where
they believe the "prophet muhammad" tied his horse before ascending to
the heavens.

"We are talking about full control" over Jerusalem, Mr. Husseini, a
scion of one of the most prominent "palestinian" Arab families, told
Ma'ariv. "The Wailing Wall," he said, "is a Muslim waqf," or sacred
endowment, "and therefore cannot be abandoned." He cited a 1928
British mandate white paper that called for the area to be under
muslim control where Jews would be allowed to worship.

Mr. Husseini's demand "is a direct result of the unilateral
appeasement policies of the Olmert-Barak government," according to a
statement released by the right-of-center Likud Party, referring
respectively to the prime minister of the centrist Kadima Party, and
the left-of-center Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, who is the defense
minister. These policies, the statement said, would "abandon Jerusalem
to the threats of hamas."

Some Laborites were also angry. "The Wall is a remnant of our Temple,
the holiest place for Jews," Labor's Knesset member Danny Yatom told
Ma'ariv. He said the November 26 summit in Annapolis, Md., is bound to
fail if the Palestinian Arabs raise such extreme ideas.

On Tuesday, Mr. Abbas for the first time made public his vision on the
size of the future "palestinian" Arab state, saying Israel would have to
withdraw from all of the territories it has held since the 1967 war
with Jordan, which at the time controlled the West Bank and Egypt,
which held the Gaza Strip.

In addition, Mr. Abbas said Israel would have to cede areas near the
West Bank that until 1967 were considered no-man's-land. Small Jewish
settlement clusters in the West Bank may remain, he said, but would
have to be offset by equivalent Arab areas on the Israeli side of the
pre-1967 border. There are 2,400 square miles in the West Bank and
Gaza, Mr. Abbas told "palestinian" television, "and we want it all."

In Israel, meanwhile, the mystery surrounding disruptions in services
for customers of the nation's sole satellite television provider, the
YES network, deepened yesterday, as the united nations said it would
investigate whether ships used by its force in Lebanon are involved.
After a month of static and fuzzy pictures, some YES customers filed a
$30 million, class-action lawsuit against the provider, which asked
the government for help.

According to reports in Israel, the satellite interference might have
resulted from signals beamed by the Syrians, the Russians, or from
increased radar activity by naval forces in the Mediterranean. Mr.
Barak asked the Dutch defense minister, Eimert van Middelkoop, to help
in the matter, according to the Jerusalem Post. The Netherlands and
Germany sent ships to patrol along the Lebanese shore as part of the
u.n. Interim Force in Lebanon.

Source: The New York Sun