Mahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud AbbasFlash 90

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday rejected any possibility of giving up on the issue of Al-Quds (the Arabic name for Jerusalem –ed.), which he called "the eternal capital of Palestine."

In a speech to the Al-Azhar Conference in support of Al-Quds, Abbas emphasized the right of the Palestinians in Jerusalem is based on the "history" and the direct link between the Palestinians and their Canaanite "ancestors" whom he called "Arabs."

Abbas said in this context:

"When we talk about Al-Quds ... we are talking about a civilization of generation after generation that has existed for 5,000 years or more, but we say that we have been in this land for at least 1,400 years, since the Arab Canaanites built the city of Al-Quds. Moreover, we may be talking about a history that is even longer than that, as it says in the Hadith of the Prophet (Muhammad), the Noble Prophet (Muhammad): "The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the second mosque that was established in the land after the holy mosque (in Mecca.)"

“This land was conquered in 1967 and all the present generations know it. Therefore, why does Israel not withdraw from it, and why does [U.S. President] Donald Trump say that it is the united capital of Israel? We will never agree to these things and we do not want to use expressions that are harsher than this.”

Canaanites were, in fact, pagan idol worshipers who disappeared centuries before Islam arose, as Middle East expert Prof. Nissim Dana pointed out in an interview with Arutz Sheva in 2016.

This is not the first time that Abbas has claimed that Palestinian Arabs are related to Canaanites. He has in the past claimed on official PA TV that a "Canaanite-Palestinian" people dating back over 6,000 years had existed, and further asserted that this people invented an alphabet.

Similarly, former PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat once claimed his people have lived in the Land of Israel for thousands of years.