Under Israeli control, Muslims have enjoyed the very freedom which Jews were denied during Jordanian occupation.

 

UN Security Council Resolution 1377 "reaffirms its unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed."

 

In a series of signed agreements since Oslo, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has promised to protect and grant free access to all religious sites, but has systematically broken its commitments.

 

Palestinian political and religious leaders consistently use the media, schools, and the pulpit to disseminate false, slanderous and inflammatory propaganda that claims Jews have no historic roots in the Land of Israel. They deliberately destroy archaeological evidence, even on the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site. Jewish religious sites in PA-controlled areas have also been ransacked and destroyed.

 

In the Oslo II Accord (Article V of Annex I), the PA signed and guaranteed protection and free access to Joseph's Tomb on the outskirts of Nablus and to the Shalom al-Yisrael (Peace on Israel) synagogue built in Jericho in 700 AD. On October 12, 2000, Palestinian Arabs burned the synagogue down, as PA forces physically prevented Israeli firefighters from reaching the scene. On October 7, 2000, Palestinian Arab mobs, assisted by PA policemen, destroyed and burned Joseph's Tomb (described in Joshua 24:32). The PA then built a mosque on the site to neutralize its Jewishness, and has barred Jews from visiting the ruins of the tomb.

 

The religious leaders who use their pulpits with impunity to incite and breed hatred are supported and subsidized by the PA, which supports such instances of mob rule. By its own conduct, the PA raises fundamental questions about whether Palestinians can be trusted to protect non-Muslim holy sites - Jewish or Christian.

 

Muslim religious leaders have compromised the purity of their faith by using fatwas - Islamic religious rulings - as political instruments to sanction terrorism against Israel. Palestinian Arabs and their supporters fail even to respect the holiness of their own religion's holy sites and objects.