PALESTINIAN DENIAL of Jewish historical connections with Jerusalem is discussed in the Jerusalem Post (appeared first in the New York Sun?) by Daniel Pipes ("What Jewish ties to Jerusalem?"). Excerpt:

Palestinians now claim that Canaanites built Solomon's Temple, that the ancient Hebrews were Bedouin tribesmen, the Bible came from Arabia, the Jewish Temple "was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem," the Jewish presence in Palestine ended in C.E. 70, and today's Jews are descendants from the Khazar Turks.

Yasser Arafat himself created a non-existent Canaanite king, Salem, out of thin air, speaking movingly about this fantasy Palestinian "forefather."

Palestinian Media Watch sums up this process: By turning Canaanites and Israelites into Arabs and the Judaism of ancient Israel into Islam, the Palestinian Authority "takes authentic Jewish history, documented by thousands of years of continuous literature, and crosses out the word 'Jewish' and replaces it with the word 'Arab.'"

The political implication is clear: Jews lack any rights to Jerusalem. As a street banner puts it: "Jerusalem is Arab." Jews are unwelcome.

He traces the phenomenon back to the early 1990s. I've been watching it closely here for the last few years. It is held more widely in the Muslim Arab world than just among the Palestinians. See, for example, my posts on the same propaganda coming from the UAE and the Egyptian Government. But it does seem now to be the official line of the Palestinian Authority, which does not provide a very constructive starting point for serious negotiations with the Israelis.

I have discussed the historical evidence for the Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount here and here.