US Rejects Palestinian claim of no Jewish connection to Western Wall

And a Happy Hanukkah to you! It is nice to hear that the Obama administration called them out on this. All holy places need to be protected.

The United States...condemned claims by a senior Palestinian official that the Western Wall of Jerusalem's Temple Mount holds no significance for Jews.

Al-Mutawakil Taha, the Palestinian Authority' deputy minister of information, had said Wednesday that the wall, regarded as Judaism's holiest site, was part of an Islamic waqf, or religious endowment, and that only "Islamic tolerance" allowed Jews to pray there.

	Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, December 25, 2009
	Photo by: Emil Salman

"We strongly condemn these comments and fully reject them as factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative," a U.S. State Department spokesman said.His claims drew immediate anger in Israel, which on Tuesday was echoed by the U.S.

"We have repeatedly raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to consistently combat all forms of de-legitimization of Israel including denying historic Jewish connections to the land."

via Haaretz.