During this season of holiness -- the Resurrection for us Christians, Passover for Jews (and the festivals are related) -- my prayer is that God may spare us from the idiotic histories that pervade the media.

The chief lie is that Islam has any claim at all to the Temple Mount.

MOHAMMED NEVER SET FOOT IN JERUSALEM DURING HIS LIFETIME

The official version of Islam’s history admits that Islam never approached Jerusalem during Mohammed’s lifetime. Soon after Mohammed’s death, Islam went into the Ridda wars (Wars of Apostasy). Islam had not even stabilized at that point.

Jerusalem was under the control of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. They would not have tolerated mosques in Jerusalem, had Islam even bordered Jerusalem, which it did not. Invading Arab armies did not arrive inside Jerusalem until 637AD -- five years after Mohammed’s death.

This is admitted to by all sources: Christian, Jewish, secular, and even Islamic histories.

AL-AQSA IS A FRAUD

How in the world could Mohammed have taken a midnight ride on a horse with the face of a woman -- called the Isra and Miraj, from whence we get the word: mirage -- to the furthest mosque (Al-Aqsa), if there was no mosque to visit in Jerusalem during his lifetime?

In 638 AD, Masjid [Mosque] al-Aqsa was built in the place of Bayt al-Maqdis [the Temple Mount] after Quds [Jerusalem] was conquered during the caliphate of Hz. Umar. -- Questions on Islam (An Islamic site)

Even the term Bayt Al-Masqdis is derived from the Hebrew Bet HaMiqdash [Holy Temple], indicating a Hebrew priority. It is a loan word.

The past week has seen riots in Jerusalem all connected to a preposterous Muslim claim that could be dismissed with a mere five minutes of study.

Now, to be fair, religious frauds are not unique to Islam.

I am reminded of Martin Luther’s frustration when he started the Reformation. He was so upset about the bogus traffic in relics, and false claims to burial sites, that he said: There are twelve apostles and seventeen of them are buried in Spain.

Don’t even get me started on the idiocy of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Saint James is not buried there. But there must be money in it because now even Protestants have built a retreat center for a buried saint who isn’t there! Luther must be rolling over in his grave.

But the world is not threatened with war over Santiago in Galicia, Spain.

The Muslim claim to Al-Aqsa has all the authenticity of UFO sightings over Los Angeles, and maybe not even that. Some questionable videos of the saucers have surfaced, which is more than can be said for Mohammed flying a horse with the face of a woman.

Does anyone in the media even bother to fact-check?

ISLAM HAS NO CONNECTION TO THE HOLY LAND AT ALL

Islam did not get up to Israel during Mohammed’s lifetime. (See Map, blue area)

Jesus, the Apostles, and the Hebrew people and prophets can be placed in the Holy Land. Islam cannot. It did not arrive until after Mohammed died.

BUT DON’T THE ARABS CALL IT AL-QUDS?

Jerusalem in Hebrew is Yerushalayim, and can be understood to mean the abiding place of peace, though its etymology is debated.

But al-Quds (which means the Holy [Place]) is just a cognate of the Hebrew Qdsh (Qadosh), which means Holy. The Arabs did not even give the city a competing name. It would be akin to calling London “The Foggy,” without any further elaboration.

NATIVES ARE NOT NECESSARILY ABORIGINES

Now, I am not one to deny that many, if not most, of the Palestinians have been in the land for centuries. I do not subscribe to Joan Peter’s view that a massive migration to the land occurred after the Jewish Aliyahs (return to the land) started in the 1880s.

Yes, some Arabs migrated in, but not as many as claimed. Rather I subscribe to the views of the right-wing Jewish Zionist, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who accepted that the Palestinians were natives.

I repudiate this conception of the Palestinian Arabs... They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico… The Iron Wall -- Jabotinsky.org

Jabotinsky’s Zionist credentials were impeccable, and if he was willing to concede that the Palestinians are a native people, so can I. However, nativity does not imply aboriginal. However long the Arabs were in the Holy Land -- and it may be quite a long time -- the Jews predated them.

At the end of the 17th century, the Dutch Protestant, Adriaan Reland, did a survey of Palestine and found that the place names were not Arabic.

Most of the settlement names originate in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Roman languages. In fact, till today, except to Ramlah, not one Arabic settlement has an original Arabic name. Till today, most of the settlement’s names are of Hebrew or Greek origin, the names distorted to senseless Arabic names. There is no meaning in Arabic to names such as Acco (Acre), Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Gaza, or Jenin and towns named Ramallah, El Halil and El-Kuds (Jerusalem) lack historical roots or Arabic philology. In 1696, the year Relandi toured the land, Ramallah, for instance, was called Bet’allah (From the Hebrew name Beit El) and Hebron was called Hebron (Hevron) and the Arabs called Mearat HaMachpelah El Chalil, their name for the Forefather Abraham. -- Palestine Israel Conflict

Nablus (mentioned above) derives its name from Flavia Neapolis [Flavius’ New City], after emperor Flavius Vespasian. The Arabs cannot pronounce the letter P, and so Neapolis became Nablus.

We see the same process in America. Minnesota is Sioux in etymology. Chicago came from an Algonquin word: shikaakwa, which was mispronounced by a French explorer as Chicagou

No white American would claim aboriginal status, yet this is what the Palestinians do.

JESUS WAS A JEW, NOT A PALESTINIAN

Jesus claimed a Jewish identity.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. -- Gospel of John 4:22

Yet, some Palestinians now claim that Jesus was Palestinian, and this idiocy is tolerated.

I may not agree with all of Israel’s policies, but I try to be a stickler when it comes to history, and Muslim Palestinian history is an outright lie.

This is not even an attack on religion, per se. Who cares what the Arabs believe? But hold them accountable for their history.

The Roman Catholic Church claims that St. Peter’s bones are buried underneath the Vatican. True or not, the Roman Catholic Church at least admits that the area was one of the seven hills of Rome, Hill Vaticanus, and originally had a pagan burial ground.

We must insist that Islam be equally honest.

Whether one is Jewish or not -- and I am Christian -- the Temple Mount is historically Jewish, and no one, even Jesus, who admitted to being Jewish, would deny it.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of a writer who wishes he had paid more attention in his Spanish class, lo those many decades ago.

Image: Ray in Manila