The Temple Mount. Photo: Wikipedia.

Someone named Saleh Zaytoun, who heads an organization called “Reporters for Al Quds,” wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post in Arabic which showed that his organization is just another propaganda outfit — and that “reporters” in the Arab world are often nothing of the sort.

The article describes the horrible things Jews are supposedly doing to Jerusalem — like living there. But then he describes the burning of the 1969 Al Aqsa Mosque by a deranged Australian Christian in these terms:

 All this paved the way for the creation of an extremist generation to demolish Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in the person of the Australian settler, Michael Dennis Rohan, who carried out his crime on August 21 1969 …

Sons of Al Quds tried to extinguish the fire and waited for Israeli firetrucks to reach the scene, but they did not come quickly, which confirms the complicity of the occupation with the attack. They also cut off water for the region surrounding the mosque on the same day the fire, prompting Jerusalemites to get firefighters from neighboring cities of Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, to fight the fire and prevent the spread to all parts of the mosque.

Israel arrested the perpetrator, claimed that he was crazy, and deported him to Australia, where he still lives without any trace of insanity.

He actually stayed in an Israeli mental institution for five years, then transferred to one in Australia where he died in 1995.

Official PA media has repeated the lies about Israel supposedly cutting off the water supply and letting the mosque burn.

 Today, 47 years after the crime the issue of Jerusalem is no longer ranked first on the agenda of the Arab and Islamic summits, the issue of Jerusalem no longer receives the media attention it requires in the midst of concerns of Arab infighting which gives Israel the golden opportunity to take over the holy land.

We in the “Reporters for Al Quds Initiative” are counting on the Arab media to give this issue the attention it deserves so the upcoming generations do not forget the importance of Jerusalem in the Arab and Muslim conscience, and we all hope that loyal journalists will contribute in traditional or in social media to confirm their steadfastness and their attachment to Jerusalem

In 2007, Islamist Sheikh Raed Salah also started an initiative called “Reporters for Al Quds” with a very similar mandate intended to get journalists to write lies like these. It is unclear if this is the same organization.

Does the Huffington Post care that it is publishing easily proven lies?

Has it ever?