Israel’s pilgerite tendency
Last month, I wrote here about this piece by James Hider in the Times which reported claims that
Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem’s Old City [from Silwan to the Western Wall] while building a ring of settlements around it to bolster their claim to the disputed city in any future peace deal.I pointed out that the real story was the deliberate destruction by the Arabs, in the building of another mosque in Temple Mount, of countless priceless artefacts dating back to the time of the first Jewish Temple, in an attempt to destroy the evidence of the ancient Jewish claim to Jerusalem. But now read on here…
Hussein Siyam, the Mukhtar of Silwan, is the tribal leader of the two largest clans in the valley to the east of Jerusalem’s Old City. He says that he has been involved in negotiations with Ir David since the beginning. ‘Anyone who tells you that there is new digging going on below the houses is lying,’ he said. ‘The dig existed already and they are just cleaning it out.’
He blames two entities for the disturbances. ‘The Committee for the Protection of Property in Silwan is a group that gets money from Arab states and the Palestinian Authority,’ said. ‘And so, it is interested in spending that money on conflict.’ The second source is more nefarious. ‘A German news company recruits activists here and gives them money to make problems in order to report on them,’ he claimed.
Since Hider quoted Israeli leftists, it would seem that anArab is prepared to tell the truth about Israel, while its own pilgerite Jews smear their country with hateful lies.