Palestinian television, supervised by the Palestinian Authority, broadcast an anti-Semitic sermon. It was delivered by sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiras, a symbol of Palestinian incitement. The anti-Semitic sermon shows that in the PA- controlled media there still are occasional instances of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement. Moreover, the mosques in the PA-administered territories continue to function conspicuously as centers of anti-Israeli hate propaganda.

Overview Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiras is a Palestinian cleric identified with Hamas and is one of the PA’s most outspoken and notorious anti-Israeli hate mongers. He was conspicuous during the Arafat era for his frequent verbal assaults on Israel, the Jewish people and the United States. His sermons, delivered at the Zaid Bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque in Gaza, are often predominantly anti-Semitic. PA-supervised Palestinian TV broadcasts them live on Fridays. The broadcasts were stopped for a period of two weeks after Abu Mazen became Chairman of the PA. On Friday, February 18, 2005, Palestinian TV even broadcast a moderate sermon delivered by sheikh Khamis ‘Aabada, speaking from the presidential mosque in Ramallah, instead of sheikh Mudeiras’ sermon. When Mudeiras did return to the small screen his sermons were initially relatively mild. However, Palestinian television is again broadcasting Muderias’ sermons, providing him with a stage for his venomous anti-Semitic hate propaganda.

On Friday, May 13, 2005, at 12:55 p.m., on the occasion of the 57 th anniversary of the naqba, 1 Palestinian television broadcast his sermon live. It was particularly vicious, laced with Islamic anti-Semitic motifs. 2 He calls the Jews “a virus resembling AIDS” and “a cancer that has spread in the body of the Islamic nation” corrupted and corrupting. He accuses the Jews of killing the prophets, of breaking promises and violating treaties, of being responsible for every civil war and for every war between countries from time immemorial. He accuses the Jews of exaggerating the events of the Holocaust and claims that the Germans only reacted to the suffering the Jews inflicted upon them. He ends his sermon with a threat, saying that “we [Muslims] once ruled the world and the day will come when, by god, we will rule the entire world. The day will come when we will rule the United States, the day will come when we will rule Britain, we will rule the whole world [and all will live in peace and comfort under our rule] except the Jews. The Jews will not live in peace and comfort under our rule…”

Mudeiras’ sermon is an example of the fact that while the PA has lowered the general level of incitement, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hate propaganda are still occasionally spread by its official media.3 Moreover, as of this posting, the PA has not taken effective steps to deal with the wider circle of incitement in the mosques (including the Temple Mount mosques) and the educational system, particularly the universities, where incitement is rife, including against the Palestinian Authority itself.

  1. Al-naqba means “catastrophe.” The Palestinians use it to refer to the events of 1948 which led to the establishment of the State of Israel.
  2. Excerpts from the sermon are translated in the Appendix.
  3. See our bulletin, “Anti-Semitic incitement in the Arab World: Spreading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion through an official internet website of the Palestinian Authority,” at http://www.intelligence.org.il

Appendix

Excerpts from the Friday sermon delivered by sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiras at the Zaid Bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque in Gaza, entitled “The 57 th anniversary of the naqba of Palestine” (Palestinian television, May 13, 2005, 12:55 p.m.)

“Praise be to Allah, to whom alone praise is due (even) for calamities, for he tested us with those strongest in enmity to the believers – The Jews…. I testify that there is no god by Allah, who warned the prophet, the messenger of Allah, may a prayer and peace be upon him, of the Jews who killed their prophets, falsified their Torah, corrupted and corrupting all their lives, who broke their promises and violated their treaties. Allah mentioned them in hundreds of Qur’an verses, all of them describing their corrupt natures and evil intentions. The worst thing said of them is that they do not honor the faithful or respect those under their care, and that they always break their promises and violate their treaties: ‘Is it not (the case) that every time they make a covenant, some party among them throw it aside?- Nay, Most of them are faithless.’ [1] I hereby testify that our emissary your beloved Muhammad, may a prayer and peace be upon him, would have been a victim of Jewish treachery had not Allah protected him.”

“Our Palestinian people is marking one of its most terrible Remembrance Days in history, the Remembrance Day for the loss of the land and the homeland and the Remembrance Day for the scattering of the people. It is the most terrible Remembrance Day the Palestinian people have encountered. It is a Remembrance Day for with the loss of Palestine so was the Arab nation lost, and with the establishment of the pretended State of Israel, so was the entire Islamic nation lost… Israel is a cancer that has spread in the body of the Islamic nation, for the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers.”

“Historically, that has been proved. Read history. I do not ask you to read the Qur’an, because the Qur’an is consistent and clear and we all believe in it, however, to those who do not believe in the Qur’an we say: Read the history! Read the history of nations! Read the history of eras! and you will fine that the Jews behind every civil strife in this land. The Jews are behind the suffering of nations. Ask Britain what it did to the Jews in the early sixth century. What did they do to the Jews? They banished them, tortured them, deported them, prevented their entry for more than 300 successive years. Ask France what it did to the Jews, the day they tortured them, banished them and burned their Talmud because of the civil strife they wanted to ignite in France during the reign of Louis XIX [sic]. Ask Portugal what it did to the Jews. Ask Czarist Russia, that accommodated the Jews, and they plotted to kill the Czar and he massacred them time after time. But do not ask Germany what it did to the Jews because the Jews are those who provoked Nazism to wage war on the entire world.”

“The day the Jews incited the countries, by means of the Zionist movement, to goad wage war on Germany economically and to boycott German goods, the day they incited Russia, Britain, France and Italy, the rage of the Germans grew towards the Jews specifically…and here [the Jews] are, committing something worse than what was done to them in the Nazi war. Yes, perhaps some of them were killed, perhaps some of them were burned, but they exaggerate the picture to gain the world’s the media and the world’s sentiments. The Jews were the victims of the worst crimes committed in history, however [those crimes] are no worse than what the Jews do to the residents of Palestine. The Jews were the victims of a specific crime, but is not what they do today on the soil of Palestine a crime?”

“We take this opportunity to hold Britain accountable and say there is revenge we can never forget! We cannot forgo the revenge we want to exact from Britain. We hold Britain responsible for what happened in Palestine. Britain is the cause, till this very minute, of every drop of blood dripping into this land.”

“I say to you: You must look at our situation with an outlook of confidence in Allah’s victory! If you help Allah [spread Islam], Allah will bring you victory. We once ruled the world and the day will come when, by god, we will rule the entire world. The day will come when we will rule the United States, the day will come when we will rule Britain, we will rule the whole world [and all will live in peace and comfort under our rule] except the Jews. The Jews will not live in peace and comfort under our rule. Treachery will keep being their nature throughout history. The day will come when the whole world will rid itself of the Jews, even the stones and the trees they injured. Listen to your beloved [Muhammad], may a prayer and peace be upon him, when he speaks to you about the terrible end in store for the Jews. The stones and the trees want the Muslims to kill all the Jews, and all of you know the hadith. [2]

[1] Surah 2, Al-Baqarah, verse 100. The verse appears in the strongly anti-Semitic context of previous verses, which describe the Jews as the enemies of Allah.
[2] Hadith: a saying of the prophet Muhammad or a story about him, the foundation for Islam’s oral tradition. In this case the reference is to the hadith which states that on Judgment Day the Jews will not be able to hide behind the stones and trees because the latter will reveal them.

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