It must be difficult being the PR team for the Palestinian Authority. Every time an ancient gem is uncovered via excavations in Jerusalem, an apocalyptic response has to be relayed to the media immediately. The job certainly requires a creative mind….or not. That’s because the Palestinian Authority and all of Israel’s enemies, know that no matter how incoherent their reasoning for opposing archaeology in Jerusalem is, no one in the press will hold them accountable for their ridiculous statements.

Case in point: the newly discovered Pilgrimage Road. The City of David has spent the last six years excavating an ancient path that connects the valley of Siloam to the Temple Mount. During the Second Temple Period, masses of ancient Jews would use the path to bring their sacrifices to the Temple. So far so good, right?…Well, not for everyone. 

The claim

Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat said that he believed the tunnel was a project being used by Israeli right-wingers to further Israel’s claim on East Jerusalem and advance settlement growth there. 

“It has nothing to do with religion, it is fake,” he told journalists at his office in Ramallah.

So despite the fact that a team consisting of some of the world’s most respected journalists have confirmed that this was, in fact, a road during the Second Temple Period, Mr. Erekat says its fake. The saddest part is that none of the “journalists” in that office challenged his hallucinatory claim. 

A Long History

But such ridiculous claims are nothing new for Israel’s archaeological community. Back in 1996, the Western Wall Heritage foundation excavated a new tunnel revealing an extension of the Temple Mount’s supporting wall. When that happened, then PA chairman Yasser Arafat convinced his mob that Israel is secretly digging tunnels under the temple mount to bring about the collapse and destruction of the Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock Mosques so that the Jews can build the Temple. Incidentally, the propaganda set off a riot that spread into Gaza claiming the lives of 25 IDF soldiers and nearly 100 Arabs. Today, the tunnel is among the most popular tourist attractions in Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu even held high-level meetings there.

But it appears as though Arafat ripped a page out of Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini’s playbook. That’s because, in 1929, rumors were spread by the Mufti that the Jews were planning to “attack Al-Aqsa”. This lie led to two Jews getting stabbed to death in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim quarter. The riots eventually spread to Hebron where 67 Jews were killed in the infamous Hebron Massacre.  

George Soros releases his minions

Fast-forward back to 2019. Erekat’s mouthpieces in Peace Now released a statement calling the Pilgrimage Road “the controversy tunnel,” (I told you they had a clever PR team), adding that it “caused the evacuation of Palestinian homes in the neighborhood and increased tensions between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers, who have been acting more intensively than ever in recent years to Judaize the neighborhood, as part of an effort to sabotage the two-state solution.”

Unlike Erekat, at least Peace Now pretends to care about the welfare of the homes of the Arab residents involved. But their excuse is just as disingenuous. That’s because these ‘peace-seekers’ are nowhere to be found when the Muslim Wakf recklessly digs underneath the Temple Mount, destroying thousands of years of Jewish artifacts in the process as they have been doing for nearly 20 years. 

Archaeology as Jewish Supremacy

But what’s most fascinating is that according to organizations like Peace Now, uncovering archaeology is now considered “Judaizing” the neighborhood. If Peace Now, and every other European backed NGO had it there way, archaeology in Israel as we know it would be banned. And archaeologists would be hauled away in handcuffs…unless, of course, they manage to find ancient archaeological relics from the “Palestinian” period.