Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed that ancient temples tying the Jewish people to Jerusalem are actually in Yemen and not Israel, during a Wednesday PLO central council meeting.
“[Israel] is trying to change the historical and legal status of the Islamic and Christian holy places, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Abbas said. “[The Al-Aqsa Mosque] is the target of the most hideous plot by the occupation. They spread incitement for its destruction, and the building of a Jewish temple in its place.”
The Al-Aqsa mosque is built on top of the Temple Mount, a holy site for all Abrahamic faiths. Despite the religious significance of the site, only Muslims are able to pray there, and much controversy and outrage have erupted in recent years as Jewish individuals, notably including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have ascended the site.
“In the Noble Quran – and I believe that also in other divine books – it says that the [First and Second] Temples were in Yemen,” he said. “People who like reading about religion can check it out.”
“[The Jews say:] ‘This is ours and that was ours, and this is where Solomon’s Temple was,'” Abbas added. “I am telling you, a large part of history is falsified. People who read the Quran know this.”
Yemen once had a vibrant Jewish community, although not considered the holiest country for Jews, it was one of the oldest, until Jews began migrating to Israel to flee persecution in 1949 and 1950 as part of Operation Magic Carpet (also known as Operation On Wings of Eagles).
Palestinian leadership and claims on Jewish history
While Abbas’s claims are not supported by historical or archaeological records, he is not the first member of the Palestinian leadership to deny a meaningful historical Jewish presence in Jerusalem.
Former PLO President Yasser Arafat reportedly said, “The Temple didn’t exist in Jerusalem, it existed in Nablus … There is nothing there [i.e., no trace of a temple on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism],” according to the Algemeiner.
Ekrima Sabri, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, also claimed, “There are no historical artifacts that belong to the Jews on the Temple Mount…There is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place (the Temple Mount) in the past. In the whole city, there is not a single stone indicating Jewish history.”
Abbas's past historical revisions
This is also not the first time that Abbas has shared a controversial version of Jewish history unaligned with the majority view of experts and historians.
Last year, Abbas’s claims that Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the world’s Jewry because of “social functions” they carried out, as opposed to antisemitism, saw him condemned by numerous leaders and antisemitism organizations.
“These people were fought because of their social function related to money, and usury,” Abbas said during an address to the Fatah Revolutionary Council. “From Hitler’s point of view, they were sabotaging, and therefore, he hated them.”
"The truth that we should spread to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with Semitism," he added.
Additionally, during his doctorate 1982 thesis titled The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945, Abbas questioned not only the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust but whether the gas chambers even existed.
Despite the historical revisionism, in his latest speech, Abbas demanded Hamas return the hostages to Israel and called them “Sons of dogs.”
Yuval Barnea contributed to this report.
