Palestinian Professor: Moses Was a ‘Great Muslim’
A Palestinian professor made an intriguing historical tweak when he appeared on television and proclaimed that Moses, the Biblical figure who led the Jews out of captivity in Egypt, was actually a Muslim. Even more surprising, Dr. Omar Ja’ara (of Al-Najah University in Nablus, West Bank) claims that the historical figure led Muslims out of captivity — not Jews.
Palestinian Media Watch explains the connotations and purported inaccuracies in Ja‘ara’s controversial claims that were made on Palestinian Authority Television:
A Palestinian university lecturer taught during a recent Palestinian Authority TV program on religion that Moses, a Muslim, brought “the Muslims of the Children of Israel out of Egypt.“ He refers to the subsequent Israeli conquest of the Land of Israel as the ”first Palestinian liberation… of Palestine.” This conquest, he taught, was led not by Joshua, as the Bible tells, but by Saul (Talut) who is also said to have slayed Goliath.
While some of this is retelling of Islamic tradition, some of it is a distortion of even the Quran for political purposes. The Quran refers to the “Children of Israel” in their land in many chapters (e.g., Sura 5), but it never refers to them or anyone else as “Palestinians.” Likewise the Quran never refers to Israel’s conquest as a “Palestinian” conquest. The lecturer on PA TV, however, deviates from Islamic tradition, and calls the nation of Israel’s conquest of the Land of Israel “the first Palestinian liberation through armed struggle to liberate Palestine.”
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