Weinstein: ‘Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to Israel’

Dr. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has condemned Israeli attorney-general Yehuda Weinstein for recently claiming that Islam’s third most sacred site, Al-Aqsa Mosque in Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) is part of Israeli territory. He called on Muslim ambassadors to UNESCO to act immediately to stop Israeli aggression against the sacred Islamic and world heritage sites in occupied Jerusalem.

Weinstein’s comment comes only weeks after UNESCO had granted the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank city of Bethlehem the status of an endangered world heritage site. It also confirm the Zionists’ distortion of Jerusalem’s Islamic history. Since the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1967 – Jewish leaders have claimed that the Dome of the Rock and Qibly (Umar) mosque are the only religious sites while the Al-Aqsa Mosque , built on top of the so-called Jewish Holy Wailing Wall, is just a public place and not a religious sanctuary.

British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon discovered in 1962 that the entire City of David in the past had been only that little rock ridge on the western bank of the Kidron Valley. In early 1970s, Professor Benjamin Mazar, former President of Hebrew University, too, confirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque was indeed built over the ruins of a Roman fortress – and not on top of the Wailing Wall.

The Dome of Rock, is not a mosque but a museum which holds some artifacts related to the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) physical journey to Heavens and beyond and his dialogue with Allah – known as ‘Miraj al-Nabvi’. It was during this historic dialogue that Allah commanded Muslims to pray five times a day.

After the so-called Six Day War in 1967, the Zionist regime annexed Arab East Jerusalem and declared the city to be the “undivided capital of Israel”. However, the United States and the rest of the world do not recognize it as such. Even the Jewish-controlled British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has confirmed this truth. BBC’s list of countries participating in the upcoming London Olympics on its website originally posted East Jerusalem as capitalcity of Palestine but did not mention even West Jerusalem as capital of Israel.

After Netanyahu’s Foreign Press Adviser and Spokesperson Mark Regev sent a letter to BBC’s Middle East Bureau Chief  Paul Danahar at BBC’s “discriminatory” behavior – the website was revised to read: “Seat of government: Jerusalem, though most foreign embassies are in Tel Aviv“.

The Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowments and Heritage warned early this month that the Zionist regime is conducting secret excavations under Al-Aqsa Mosque at night, which will obliterate Islamic heritage.