Egypt has forced more than 1,000 people out of the town of Rafah, which sits astride the border between Sinai and Gaza, is planning to expel thousands more, and is blowing up homes, all to create a buffer zone against terrorist infiltration. How has a leading human-rights organization responded? Elliott Abrams writes:

While many in the West seem to think the current fighting in Israel is about housing policy, or human rights, or the selective blockade of the Gaza Strip, the rhetoric of Palestinian leaders and on Palestinian social media makes clear that it is in fact about al-Aqsa mosque. This should come as no surprise: fabricated claims that “al-Aqsa is in danger” have been used to provoke anti-Jewish violence for a hundred years. In this particular case, explains Haviv Rettig Gur, both Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party exploited the claim in their rivalry for Palestinian hearts and minds: