'Entire world will pay' if mosque on Temple Mount harmed

The Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel (image courtesy Pixabay)

A prominent adviser to the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas claims Israel is plotting against the Al Aqsa Mosque in its capital, Jerusalem, and if Muslims don't act decisively, "the entire world will pay."

The Twitter comments by Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Abbas' adviser on religious and Islamic affairs and a Shariah judge, were spotlighted by Palestinian Media Watch.

PMW described him as one of the more important religious figures in the PA.

He was "repeating the PA libel that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque," the group said.

Al-Habbash wrote in Twitter: "The "Israeli plot against the Al-Aqsa mosque is becoming more dangerous and expanding from day to day. If the Muslims don't act now, something will occur whose end is bad and bitter, and then the entire world will pay dearly. The Al-Aqsa mosque is religion and faith, and nothing is too valuable for it. 'So take warning, O people of vision' [Quran, Sura 59:2, Sahih International translation]."

PMW noted the last warning was a quote from the Quran calling for punishment of the Jews.

Quran, Sura 59:2, in the Sahih International translation, reads: "It is he who expelled the ones who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture [Jews] from their homes at the first gathering. You did not think they would leave, and they thought that their fortresses would protect them from Allah; but [the decree of] Allah came upon them from where they had not expected, and he cast terror into their hearts [so] they destroyed their houses by their [own] hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O people of vision."

PMW said Al-Habbash has a history of anti-Semitism, including in a recent commentary for a Palestinian Authority newspaper in which he wrote, "The battle over Jerusalem that is raging today is not just a battle with a foreign occupation that has occupied [Jerusalem's] land, but a battle between facts and myth, between truth and falsehood, between justice and injustice, between integrity and distortion, between tolerance and fanaticism, and between good and evil."

He claimed Israel and the Jews who live there are "enemies of Islam," "enemies of Muslims," have a "culture of Satan" and represent "evil."

During a recent address at a mosque in Moscow he stated, "Jerusalem is the embodiment of the struggle between truth and falsehood, and it is one of the religious symbols that are connected to the Islamic faith – like the sanctuary in Mecca and the sanctuary in Medina – and it needs its people, the Muslims from the entire world in order to protect its identity, history, and sanctity."

He wrote in April for the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: "The battle over Jerusalem that is raging today is not just a battle with a foreign occupation that has occupied [Jerusalem's] land, but a battle between facts and myth, between truth and falsehood, between justice and injustice, between integrity and distortion, between tolerance and fanaticism, and between good and evil. ... And perhaps those who read history well and understand the irrevocable facts of the religion will be calm regarding the final result of this battle, which will not complete its path except in the harbors of the promise for the end of days."