JEWISH-TEMPLE DENIAL WATCH:

Palestinians Move To Preserve Identity

RAFAH, June 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) � Seeking to reserve the Palestinian identity in the face of Israeli attempts, the Parliament of the southern Gaza town of Rafah called upon the media not to use the " Philadelphi Route " term adopted by the Israeli occupation troops for Saladin Route , a borderline between Palestinian and Egyptian territories.

In a statement released by the London-based Middle East newspaper Thursday June3 , the Parliament said that the Israeli occupation still targets the history and culture of Palestine and works to obliterate the name of the southern entrance into Palestine , through changing the Saladin Route into Philadelphi Route .

I don't know the history of these names, so I won't comment on this issue. If anyone can enlighten me, please do. But it was the following that caught my eye:

Imposing Media Language

Israel seeks to impose its own terms on the mass media, as it has repeatedly sought to change the name of Al-Aqsa Mosque into "Temple Mount" and the Boraq Wall into the "Waling Wall".

This is shameless historical revisionism. They're called the "Temple Mount" and "Wailing Wall" (or "Western Wall") because the Jewish Temple was there centuries before Muhammad had his vision of Jerusalem or a mosque was built on the spot. The story of Muhammad's ride on the creature called "Al-Boraq" (various spellings) goes back to the earlier extra-Qur'anic traditions about his life, but I never heard the term "Al-Boraq Wall" until the last year or two. You'll notice that when it's used, it generally has to be explained, which makes me wonder if it isn't a recent coinage. The Western Wall was, of course, there at the time of Muhammad (I would guess it was underground at that point - the Romans leveled what was above ground) and for centuries before, but it was the remnant of the retaining wall of Herod's Temple platform, not part of a mosque.

Of course, what follows in the article is even more Orwellian:

As for the term "terrorist", used by Israeli newspapers and a large number of western papers to describe Palestinians who carry out resistance attacks against Israel , several mass media have previously called for not using it and using "patriot" and "martyr" terms instead.

UPDATE 9 June): Menachem Brody e-mails:

As a result of much too many dusty hours I have spent riding up and down the "Philadelphia Route", let me assure you that not only are both the names absolute fabrications, but even the road itself was created from nothing, in our generation, [and hopefully will return to nothing as soon as possible...]

This runs down an artificial straight-line boundary drawn on a map between the British interests in the South [Egypt] and the Turkish in the North [Palestine] in 1906.

Lord Cromer, Britain's agent in Egypt, wanted to change the border between the Ottoman Empire, which was under strong German influence, and Egypt, in order to push the Ottomans further away from the Suez Canal. In 1892, the Turks agreed to allow Egyptian guard stations near the Gulf of Eilat; in 1905, Lord Cromer tried to move the border. In April 1906, the Turks were given an ultimatum - to set the border between Aqaba and Rafah. They proposed a compromise (El Arish - Ras Muhamed) but finally gave in to British pressure. The firm stand of the commander of the Turkish police station at Um Rashrash (today, Eilat) changed the starting point of the border from Aqaba to Taba, which became the international border between Israel and Egypt.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/1906map.html

There was never a road down the border line [there was nothing to connect or drive to in the vicinity, and the terrain is very challenging] , and the border itself was obliterated by the 1967 6-day war which joined the Sinai to Israel. Only after the Begin-Sadat peace agreement of 1979 was the border re-established, and marked by a 3 strand barbed wire fence [which wasn't enough to keep tourists from wandering over the line by mistake]. New border markers were then placed along the line by helicopters, and we [Israeli reservists] began the incredibly tedious [and dusty] work of guarding the border.

On Israeli code maps, the jeep trail along the border received the computer assigned code name of "Philadelphia".

During the first Intifada, smuggling of arms and attacks on Israeli patrols led to strengthening the fence, widening and paving the road, etc.

Saladin must have arrived there quite recently, since up to my last reserve tour there [some 8 years ago] I never heard it mentioned by the locals.