A video bulletin which showed a Palestinian Authority religious leader calling for genocide of Jews has cost the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) research institute its YouTube account.
PMW reported on Monday that YouTube froze its account after it posted a video which shows the principal PA’s religious leader, the Mufti Muhammad Hussein, presenting the killing of Jews by Muslims as a religious Islamic goal.
He cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that “the Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”
The Mufti is appointed by the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. The moderator who introduced the Mufti at the event reiterated another Islamic belief: that the Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs. “Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews) is a war of religion and faith,” the moderator said.
The ceremony was broadcast on official PA TV, and PMW translated it and presented the video with English subtitles.
The video was flagged by YouTube as violating its Terms of Service. While all PMW videos are working except this one, the account is frozen and PMW cannot upload new videos for the next two weeks.
The organization uploaded the video to a different server and it can now again be viewed from PMW's website. Click here to view the video at its new location.
Turkish Islamic scholar Adnan Oktar made a scorching response to the claim by the Mufti. During his nightly talk show on the A9TV satellite television channel, Oktar clarified that there is no source in the Koran that calls for murder of the Jews -- and no justification for it.
“You can go nowhere by bloodshed. All will inflict affliction upon you if you shed blood; you will simply be on a downward spiral of bloodshed,” he warned. “Pull yourselves together. I address those who advocate murder. Jews are the descendants of prophets -- Allah pre-destined them as Jews,” he emphasized. “They live as Jews. The Koran refers to them as the People of the Book... one cannot simply go and kill them.”