Allyn Fisher-Ilan obfuscates religious significance, lies about history and resorts to racism

In a story about a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by Israeli Parliamentarian Danny Danon, Reuters correspondent Allyn Fisher-Ilan mangles religious and historical significance, revives an old canard, and parrots a racist trope.  She writes:

Under armed police escort, Danny Danon, a deputy parliament speaker, toured the site of an ancient Jewish temple, a plaza home to the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, and said he thought Jews should be permitted freer access there... Danon told reporters at the nearby Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site...

Fisher-Ilan attempts here to belittle the religious significance of the Temple Mount for Jews (the site of King Solomon's Temple and the second Herodian Temple) by referring to the shrine with a common noun while she identifies and venerates the Muslim shrine atop the same ground.  This of course, to delegitimize Israeli claims to the area while fostering Arab claims to the same.  And it is the Temple Mount, not the Western Wall, which is Judaism's holiest prayer site -- even if Jews are frequently prevented from praying there due to Muslim "sensibilities".

Fisher-Ilan continues:

Past visits by senior Israeli officials to the site at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute have sparked violence, notably in 2000 when a visit by Ariel Sharon, then an opposition leader, set off a Palestinian uprising and years of bloodshed.

As we have documented many times, this is a canard which even the Palestinians have corrected but Reuters republishes the lie ad nauseam so as to absolve the Palestinians for their terror war which was actually planned months in advance of Sharon's visit and killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians.

Then comes the racist trope:

Israel considers Jerusalem as its capital including Arab East Jerusalem, which it captured in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state.

Again, as we've noted many, many times, the term "Arab East Jerusalem" originated with the ethnic cleansing of all Jews from their communities in the eastern part of Jerusalem by the Jordanian-commanded Arab Legion in 1948.  Prior to this extirpation, the Jews had a continuous presence in the Old City for three millennia and in the modern era, were the majority religio-ethnic population from the middle of the 19th century.  Thus, Fisher-Ilan's use of the term "Arab East Jerusalem" is racist, ahistorical, and endorses that act of ethnic cleansing.

Jewish families evacuating the Old City of Jerusalem through Zion's Gate. June 1948. John Phillips, LIFE Magazine.