History denial: The Jewish Bible "was never proven" and the Jewish claim to Hebron has no "veracity," postulates Official PA daily
Excerpt of a column by Bassem Barhoum, regular columnist for the official PA daily
Headline: “The Ibrahimi Mosque – Palestinian and Hebronite”
“In the historical periods, before humanity had international law that regulated its relations with one another, when the strongest of the ancient peoples ruled an area it made nearly everything there match its beliefs, including all of their symbolism. Therefore, and as the science of history and not mythology says, the Ibrahimi Mosque (i.e., Cave of the Patriarchs) turned into an Arab Islamic mosque, and it is the fourth holiest site for the Muslims after the two mosques in Mecca and Medina and the Jerusalem Noble Sanctuary (i.e., the Temple Mount) – the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. That is what history as a science says, and that is what was determined by international law and UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which is appointed to the cultural heritage of the peoples.
When Zionism created its narrative at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, whose goal was to justify the occupation of Palestine, it turned the narrative and geography of the Jewish Bible, whose veracity was never proved by the science of history (sic., an abundance of archaeological and historical evidence proves Jewish history in Israel), as the only truth regarding this land where history began and ended. The Zionists’ goal was not just the narrative in and of itself, but rather creating a narrative that would justify the occupation and negating the other in a racist and barbaric manner, and this is a narrative that is only noted in the period of the old colonialism that is despised by most of the world’s peoples…
The Palestinian citizen in Hebron is perhaps that greatest believer in the story of our lord Abraham, peace be upon him, but he considers it the most personal story and understands that this story has no connection to the claims of Zionist expansion, which contain racism and denial of the other that have turned the place into a problem and a site of tension, instead of a site of coexistence and a place of cross-cultural meeting, and not for struggle between them (apparently refers to Israeli renovations of the Cave of Patriarchs to make it accessible for the disabled -Ed.).”