By this point, I've gotten somewhat used to hearing the Palestinian line, that the Jews have no claim to the Land of Israel, that we never lived there (those were the "Israelites", and they weren't around for long anyway), that the Har Habayit (Temple Mount) in its entirety is a mosque, and that of course that the Beit Hamikdash never stood on it, if it ever stood at all.

So, when I opened the paper today to an article about Arafat's new Prime Puppet, I was a bit upset, but not very, when I noticed that Ahmed Qurei has a massive picture in his office depicting the Dome of the Rock, supposedly the third holiest Islamic site, which had nonetheless been neglected and rundown until very recently. Arafat has a similar picture in his own office. Then, I noticed something about the picture.

Here's a picture of Qurei in his office. If you look closely, you will notice something quite interesting. Ahmed Qurei looks like an Easter Island monolith. Ignore that for now. Also ignore how he appears to be asking you to dance.

Look instead at the lower left hand corner of the picture behind him. "DOME OF THE ROCK". Then, underneath, "BETH ELMAKDES." Sound familiar to anyone?
I could almost laugh.

After doing some Google research, it turns out that "Bet El-Makdes" is actually the Arabic name for Jerusalem. Really. "Al- Quds" is an abbreviation. There's even a Beit Al-Makdes Charitable Society. If you like (and if you can convincingly pretend to be an Arab), you could spend a night and 2 days in Beit El Makdes. Sounds tempting.

I discoved something else in my research- hordes of Hamas "communiques." And they call Jerusalem "Beitul Makdes." What irony.