The recent attacks in Israel demonstrate the consequences of using lies as political instruments, inciting terrorism and generating violence. Last Friday, two sisters, Rina (15) and Maia (20), were murdered when Palestinian terrorists sprayed the family's car with bullets. That evening, a car-ramming attack at Tel Aviv's beachfront promenade killed Alessandro Parini, a 35-year-old lawyer from Rome, and injured seven pedestrians, all tourists from Italy and the United Kingdom.
Clearly, incitement by Hamas and other Palestinian sources can have consequences way beyond the tragic loss of these innocent lives. Nowhere is the phenomenon more apparent than in Jerusalem, specifically in connection to the Temple Mount, the holy site upon which the ancient Jewish Temples were located, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque later built.
For over a century, baseless allegations about the Temple Mount have been used as a pretext to spark anti-Jewish violence. Already in the 1920s, the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini's lie that al-Aqsa Mosque was in danger ignited a series of Arab riots that led to hundreds of deaths. Ever since, Palestinian leaders and religious figures have fabricated threats to the Mosque to incite terrorism against Jews, inspire uprisings, trigger armed hostilities, and realise political goals.
