YASSER ARAFAT ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE'S LINK TO PALESTINE:

Asked what he has to say in response to the accusations he does not recognize the Jewish people's link to the land, Arafat said, "They are entirely untrue. My religion, Islam, obliges me to respect Judaism and Jewish history, whose prophets are revered in the holy Koran as God's messengers. While we insist that East Jerusalem be the capital of a Palestinian state, and that the Haram al-Sharif, on which are situated the two mosques, Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, come under Palestinian sovereignty, we accept Jewish sovereignty over the Wailing Wall and over the Jewish quarter of the Old City. We accept this only because we recognize and respect the Jewish religion and the Jewish historical attachment to Palestine."

I don't know about you, but I'm not satisfied with this. Maybe it's progress, but I want to hear Mr. Arafat say forthrightly that there was a Jewish temple in antiquity (two of them, in fact) on the Temple Mount (the Haram al-Sharif) and that claims to the contrary are completely false.