PLO Islamic-Christian Council about Australian Christian who set the fire in 1969: Rohan was an “extremist Israeli settler”.

Every year, the PA commemorates the burning of the pulpit of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969. And every year the PA repeats the libel that Jews set the fire.

In fact, it was a man named Michael Rohan – an Australian Christian with a mental health disorder – who lit the fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.

But such facts don't matter to the PA. Every year, the PA uses the occasion to demonize Israel and Jews by claiming Rohan was a Jew, and to add fuel to its own “fire” that the PA always keeps on the backburner: The libel that Israel/the Jews are continuously trying to “destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple in its place.”

This year was no exception. In a chilling voice conveying a sense of impending danger, the narrator on official PA TV said the following:

The head of the PA presidential committee for church affairs and Director-General of the Palestine National Fund (PNF) Ramzi Khouri libeled Israel in a similar way, claiming arsonist Rohan was an “extremist settler terrorist” and that Israel is still driven by the same “extremist thinking and ideology,” seeking the destruction of Al-Aqsa.

The PA is constantly telling Palestinians that Jerusalem - and particularly the Al-Aqsa Mosque - is in danger. As Palestinian Media Watch has documented, this is one of the PA’s ways to motivate Palestinians to use violence and carry out terror attacks against Israel – to “protect” the mosque. The PA keeps this libel on the backburner always and intensifies it at times when the PA wants to encourage riots and terror.

Other organizations repeated the libel too. Claiming that Australian Christian Rohan was an “extremist Israeli settler,” the PLO Islamic-Christian Council stated that “the flames are still raging at the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque” and that “danger is still surrounding the Al-Aqsa Mosque more than ever.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 23, 2021]

The Palestinian National Council - the legislative body of the PLO – referred to visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as “the ongoing aggression by the occupation authorities and the settlers to which the Al-Aqsa Mosque is being subjected” and a “continuation of the crime of burning [the mosque] 52 years ago.” [Official PA TV News, Aug. 20, 2021]

A regular columnist of the official PA daily described the arson in 1969 as “the greatest crime committed by the terrorist bodies in the history of Zionist Judaism and messianic Judaism.” He also claimed that Rohan was Jewish: “a crazy man who was blind with hatred and fanaticism, namely Rabbi Kakhakh” – PMW was unable to find records of a “Rabbi Kakhakh.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 23, 2021]

Even the PA presidency repeated the lie that the arsonist in 1969 was Jewish and reiterated the antisemitic statement that Jews visiting the Temple Mount “desecrate” the Al-Aqsa Mosque.