History

The term "Temple Denial" was used by Dore Gold

Dore Gold

Dore Gold is an Israeli statesman who has served in various diplomatic positions under several Israeli governments. He is the current President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs...

, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a public policy think tank devoted to research and analysis of critical issues facing the Middle East. The center is located in Jerusalem, Israel...

 and former Israel Ambassador to the United Nations, in his 2007 book, The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Israeli writer David Hazony

David Hazony

David Hazony is an American-born Israeli writer and magazine editor.David Hazony has studied at Columbia University, received a B.A. and M.A...

 has described the phenomenon as, "a campaign of intellectual erasure [by Palestinian leaders, writers, and scholars] ... aimed at undermining the Jewish claim to any part of the land," and compared the phenomenon to Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

.

According to Gold and Dennis Ross

Dennis Ross

Dennis B. Ross is an American diplomat and author. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W...

, at the 2000 Camp David Summit, Yasser Arafat

Yasser Arafat

Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...

 insisted that the Jewish Temple

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

 existed in Nablus

Nablus

Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...

, not on the Temple Mount

Temple Mount

The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...

 in Jerusalem. Gold describes Arafat's assertion as part of "A campaign by Arafat to completely delegitimize the Israeli claim to the city." He wrote that Temple denial has become a "new Palestinian dogma." Others have described Temple denial as part of an Islamic strategy to rule "all of Jerusalem minus the Jews, or as an unfair return for Israel's attempt to make peace at Camp David.

According to Dore Gold, in the wake of Arafat's remark at Camp David, Temple denial "spread across the Middle East like wildfire," and even "subtly slipped into the writing of Middle-East based western reporters." Gold cites Time Magazine

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

and its reporter Romesh Rotnesar as an example.

Dore Gold argues that the removal by the Waqf of archaeological material from the Temple Mount without archaeological supervision is a physical form of Temple denial. Such material was being sifted for significant artifacts by Gabriel Barkay

Gabriel Barkay

Gabriel Barkay is an Israeli archaeologist. Born in 1944 in Hungary, he immigrated to Israel in 1950. He received his PhD in Archaeology from Tel Aviv University in 1985. His dissertation was about LMLK seal impressions on jar handles. He participated in the Lachish excavations with David Ussishkin...

 in the Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation

Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation

The Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation is an archaeological project begun in 2005 dedicated to recovering archaeological artifacts from 300 truckloads of topsoil removed from the Temple Mount by the waqf during the construction of the underground el-Marwani Mosque from 1996-1999...

.

Daniel Levin

Daniel Levin (writer)

Daniel Levin is an American attorney and novelist.Levin grew up in Hollywood, Florida. Levin earned the B.A. from the University of Michigan in Roman and Greek civilization. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, and clerked for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel. In 2004 Levin...

 calls Temple denial a "relatively new phenomeon" that "has become a central tenet of Palestinian nationalism." According to Levin, "The Islamic land trust is destroying Judeo-Christian ruins beneath the Temple Mount so as to deny any connection between Judaism and Christianity and Jerusalem."

In 2009 James R. Davila

James R. Davila

James R. Davila is Professor of Early Jewish Studies and current Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews. A specialist in Second Temple Judaism and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Davila is a Participant at the Enoch seminar and a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal...

, Professor of Early Jewish Studies and Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews

St Mary's College, St Andrews

St Mary's College of the University of St Andrews, in Fife, Scotland - in full, the New College of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - was founded in 1538 by Archbishop James Beaton, uncle of Cardinal David Beaton on the site of the pedagogy or St Johns College .St Mary's College was...

 criticized the increasing practice among journalists of writing as though the existence of the ancient Jewish temples on the Temple Mount

Temple Mount

The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...

 was a disputable question with two legitimate "competing narratives." According to Professor Davila, "reporters need to get it straight that there is no debate among specialists in specialist literature about the existence of the Iron Age II Judean Temple and the Second and Herodian Temples in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount platform. Again, narratives to the contrary are propaganda, not scholarship."

In 2005, in a book entitled From Jerusalem to Mecca and Back; The Islamic Consolidation of Jerusalem, Yitzhak Reiter

Yitzhak Reiter

Yitzhak Reiter is an Israeli political scientist.Reiter teaches in the Conflict Studies Program of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the Department of Political Science at Ashkelon Academic College...

 describes the growing tendency of Islamic authorities to deny the existence of the Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount, characterizing it as part of a campaign to increase the status of Jerusalem and the Temple mount in Islam as part of the effort to make Jerusalem a Muslim city under Arab governance. According to Reiter, this narrative "reflects the mainstream in many Islamic communities around the world," and is promoted by "religious figures, politicians, academics and journalists."

This position is not universally accepted among Islamic scholars. Imam Abdul Hadi Palazzi

Abdul Hadi Palazzi

Abdul Hadi Palazzi , legally named Massimo Palazzi, is the secretary general of the Italian Muslim Assembly, and the Khalifah for Europe of the Qadiri Sufi Order....

, leader of Italian Muslim Assembly and a co-founder and a co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship, quotes the Qur'an to support Judaism's special connection to the Temple Mount. According to Palazzi, "The most authoritative Islamic sources affirm the Temples,". He adds that Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims because of its prior holiness to Jews and its standing as home to the biblical prophets and kings David and Solomon, all of whom he says are sacred figures also in Islam. He claims that the Qur'an "expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays the same role for Jews that Mecca has for Muslims".