(JTA) — A Palestinian Authority study that says the Western Wall was never a part of the Temple Mount complex is “contemptible, historically false and runs afoul of efforts to achieve peace with the State of Israel," the Orthodox Union’s director of public policy, Nathan Diament, said in a statement Tuesday. "Coming from an official arm of the Palestinian Authority, it is nothing other than official incitement."
The paper was prepared by Al-Mutawakel Taha, a senior official with the PA Ministry of Information, according to The Jerusalem Post.
According to the study, the Western Wall, which the Palestinians call Al-Buraq wall and say is an integral part of the Al-Aksa Mosque, contains no stones from the era of King Solomon and wrote that the Jews never used the site for worship until the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
“This wall was never part of the so-called Temple Mount, but Muslim tolerance allowed the Jews to stand in front of it and weep over its destruction,” he wrote.
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