Palestinian Authority Mufti Sheikh Ekrima Sabri has issued a religious ruling forbidding Jews from touching the Western Wall. The edict followed the discovery of Israeli intentions to repair some stones in the Wall had become loose. The Moslems claim that the Wall is part of the Temple Mount, which they claim belongs to them. Mai Soleb, English spokesperson for Sheikh Sabri, told Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA yesterday, \"The [Western] Wall is part of the Al Burak Wall which is part of the Al Aqsa mosque so the Jews have no right to the place... The whole problem is that the place does not relate to them so whatever they do with it - putting in papers, practicing their prayers, all these things are not things that we want...\"



Lerner then said, \"So as far as Islam is concerned, the Jews should not be putting notes in the Wall, they should not be touching the Wall, they should not be doing anything with that wall.\" Soleb responded, \"Exactly. And we believe that this is our religious property and we will take it back from them one day.\"



Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau reacted with disdain to what he called the Moslems\' \"disgraceful effort to rewrite history.\" He told Ha\'aretz, \"In this generation there are still those who were saved from fire with numbers from Auschwitz on their arms, and yet despite everything there are Holocaust deniers - so too there is no surprise there are those who are ready to distort a 2,000-year-old historical truth.\"