The 2000 Al Aqsa Intifada erupted in Arab cities and villages in both Israel and the occupied areas. The theme was that the Jews want to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – the third most sacred site to the Muslims.
Jews did not understand from where did this claim come. If any mosque were at risk due to conflicting religious demands, it would have been the Dome of the Rock, which stands at the location of the Temples of old times.
Bob Wallace’s How Propaganda Works is the best explanation to this phenomenon, which I read. The life of the Israeli Arabs has been relatively peaceful. Very few Israeli Arabs indulged in terrorism without first leaving Israel. Some sick leaders want to get them to fight the Jews, to make life in Israel more difficult than it is. To accomplish this goal, the Israeli Arabs need to be persuaded that the Jews are after something sacred to them.
To point out the inequality in standards of life, level of education in schools, electricity supply, disposal of sewage – is not enough – because those are problems which can be solved in few years once the will and pressure are there. Therefore, some grievance, which cannot be resolved because it was not based upon fact in the first place, had to be invented. Hence, the accusations that Jews want to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque.
See Preservation of Al Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim holy sites about sites important to the Muslim world, which are under Muslim control, and which are not preserved by the Muslims, to say the least.
