The Al-Aqsa Libel: A Century of Manufactured Outrage

As Iran’s regime continues their indiscriminate bombing of Israel and indeed others in the region, we saw the shocking scenes of missiles slamming into Jerusalem’s Old City. Plumes of smoke resulting from the impact of cluster munitions rose from historic landscape, with shrapnel landing meters from the Church of the Sepulchre, and in the Jewish quarter, close to the Temple Mount itself, where the Al Aqsa Mosque is situated. 

Yet even as the Ayatollahs threaten the very holy sites they claim to defend, extremism Islamist voices around the world continue to spread libels and lies about Al Aqsa and Haram al-Sharif.

The claim that Jews seek to destroy or desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque is not a political opinion — it is a recycled incitement libel with a documented, bloody history stretching back over a century. Each time it is deployed, the pattern is the same: a baseless accusation, manufactured panic, and perpetuation of the cycle of real-world violence against Jews. Now, predictably, packaged as righteous political criticism of Israel.

The Mufti’s Invention, 1920s

The libel was systematically weaponised by Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Nazi collaborating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In the 1920s he ran a calculated campaign of fear and propaganda, preaching in mosques and spreading pamphlets claiming Jews intended to seize and destroy the mosque. He used this lie as a tool to rally Arab support whilst, at the same time, running a campaign of fear, intimidation and murder against his Palestinian opponents.

The consequences were catastrophic. In August 1929, whipped up by the Mufti’s incitement during Ramadan, mobs massacred 67 Jews in Hebron — one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world — and killed dozens more in Jerusalem and Safed. The lie was baseless then. No Jewish organisation had threatened the mosque. But it did not need to be true.

The 1969 Arson: A Lie Layered on a Lie

In August 1969, Al-Aqsa was genuinely set on fire — by Michael Denis Rohan, an  Australian Christian visitor, acting alone out of a messianic fixation. Israel’s government condemned the act immediately. Yet Palestinian Authority media has repeated, annually for decades, that Rohan was “a Zionist” and “a Jew acting on behalf of the Jewish religion.” As recently as 2018, an adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas was still claiming the mosque was “still burning today” due to the Israeli occupation. The arson anniversary has been deliberately kept alive not as history but as a renewable source of incitement.

1990: The Temple Mount Riots

In October 1990, a rumour spread that a Jewish organisation was planning to march on the Temple Mount to lay a cornerstone for a new temple. Around 3,000 Muslims gathered on the mount; riots broke out and at least 19 Palestinians were killed in the chaos that followed. The rumour was false. No such march occurred. But the template was now firmly established: spread a story about Jewish intentions toward Al-Aqsa, stand back, and watch the violence ignite.

Abbas and the Knife Intifada, 2015

The libel reached a new peak of official cynicism in September 2015, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a televised speech declaring that Jews had “no right to defile [Al-Aqsa] with their filthy feet,” and praised every “drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” The speech helped trigger the so-called “knife intifada,” a wave of stabbing attacks on Israeli civilians. This was not fringe radicalism — it was broadcast on official state media.

7 October and “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”

There is a direct, traceable line of incitement from al-Husseini’s 1929 sermons to Hamas’s 2023 atrocity. It is precisely why Hamas called it Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. This is hugely important. Many commentators have attempted to excuse 7 October by saying that it should be seen in context of the 1948 Nakba. Yes, of course there was context – but it was the context of antisemitic 1929 Pogroms, almost 2 decades before 1948. And, the inciter in chief’s legacy is handed down yet again.

The UK Parliament, March 2026

The latest iteration arrived in the British Parliament in March 2026, delivered in respectable Westminster language but carrying the same charge. On 15 March, Labour MP Imran Hussain tabled an Early Day Motion condemning the “closure” of Al-Aqsa during Ramadan and demanding its immediate reopening — with no mention of the Iranian missile strikes on Jerusalem that had prompted the closure.

Four days later, on 19 March, Labour MP Jas Athwal used the Business of the House debate in the Commons Chamber to tell the House that his constituents feared Israel’s restrictions on access to Al-Aqsa were really about “control” over the mosque rather than security, asking the Leader of the House to provide time for a full ministerial statement.

What neither MP mentioned is that Al-Aqsa had been closed because Iranian ballistic missiles were targeting Jerusalem. Within hours of Athwal’s question being posted online, one such missile struck the Old City area, landing approximately 350 metres from the mosque. Former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy posted footage of smoke rising over the Temple Mount and asked: “If it were full of people, we’d have been a hair’s breadth from a mass casualty event. Do you get it yet?”

It is unclear whether either MP actively realised the long and ignominious history of the charge that they were promoting. They may well have simply been parroting the views of a selection of their constituents. But if that is the case, is it really too much to expect senior elected representatives to properly understand the implications of their comments in the House of Commons?

The Government’s Non-Response

Likewise, is it too much to expect the actual British government to realise exactly what is being put forward? Because the government did not rebuke either MP. A government representative did not challenge the framing, did not mention the Iranian missiles, and did not correct the record. Instead, she pivoted to criticise Israel, telling the House: “The UK strongly condemns the Israeli Security Cabinet’s decision to expand Israeli control over the West Bank. We have called on Israel to reverse this decision immediately.” She added she would “bear in mind” Athwal’s request for a minister to address the House further.

This was shoddy work. It is a fact that, on 8 February this year, Israel’s Security Cabinet did approve a package of measures which increased their control over the West Bank, which has been widely criticised, including by President Trump. But these measures did not affect Al Aqsa. And even though the extreme Jewish fringe who have long claimed Al Aqsa have representatives in the Israeli government, taking over the Mosque wasn’t, isn’t and never will be Israeli Government policy. It would helpful if at the same time as our government criticises increasing Israeli control over the West Bank, they also insisted on the truth about Al Aqsa and didn’t allow their politics to act as a smokescreen for the Haj-Amin / Hamas libel.

This government — like its predecessors — regularly and sincerely declares that it is committed to protecting British Jews and combating antisemitism. We take them at their word. But there is a test of that commitment that goes beyond funding security guards and passing motions of condemnation after the fact. The test is this: when a dangerous libel, with a long and sinister history, is recycled on the floor of the House of Commons, does the government recognise it for what it is and say so? On 19 March 2026, the answer was no. The libel passed unremarked. Israel was criticised instead.

There is a very good reason why speeches made in the House of Commons enjoy the protection of parliamentary privilege. Free and fearless debate is the lifeblood of democracy, and MPs must be able to speak without threat of legal action. But parliamentary privilege was never conceived as an immunity cloak — a licence to recycle a libel so potent, so deliberately inflammatory, that Hamas itself reached for it as the very name and justification of their 7 October pogrom. To invoke it now, in Westminster, is not brave political speech, but an echo of a profoundly dangerous conspiracy theory. That the government heard it, said nothing, and criticised Israel instead suggests not malice — but something in some ways more troubling: they simply do not understand what they are dealing with.