Actually, the jihad against Israel has always been a religious conflict, as shown in detail in The Palestinian Delusion.
“PA foreign minister fans the flames of religious war,'” by Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, June 15, 2020:
PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki has twice recently fanned the flames of religious war among Palestinians and the entire Muslim world. The top PA official continues to demonize Israel with the libel that Israel plans “to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged Temple.” Al-Malki made one of his statements in a video conference of Arab officials at the level of foreign ministers regarding Israel’s presumed future annexation – i.e., applying Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the Jewish cities and towns in the West Bank:
PA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Malki: “[Israel’s annexation] will place the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque… under full Israeli control, in order to execute their plan to promote their false narrative in order to destroy it and build their alleged Temple. This will turn the conflict from a political conflict into a religious conflict whose end will be bad and bitter, will undermine the stability, and will destroy the security and peace in the region and the world.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 11, 2020]…