Muslim clerics in Hevron (illustration)
Muslim clerics in Hevron (illustration)Najeh Hashlamoun/Flash 90

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) is commonly touted in international circles as a "moderate" alternative to its unity partner Hamas, a PA cleric's sermon broadcast on official PA TV last Friday put any doubts about the organization's virulent Islamic anti-Semitism to rest.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposed and translated the sermon made on the Muslim day of rest, in which the cleric demonized Jews as "apes and pigs" in classic Muslim anti-Semitic trope, and likewise called them the "slaves of deities."

"Many Muslims are being harmed these days by a group whose hearts were sealed by Allah. 'He made of them (Jews) apes and pigs and slaves of deities,'" the cleric can be seen saying, quoting the Koran (5:60).

He added "they are harming the livelihood of the believers (Muslims)...they withhold their (Palestinian Arabs') money and collect interest on it." 

PMW points out that in no less than three places (Suras 2:65, 5:60 and 7:166) the Koran says Allah turned Jews into apes and/or pigs. 

In the first instance, the text reads "and you had already known about those who transgressed among you concerning the Sabbath, and We said to them, 'be apes, despised.'"

The cleric also claimed that Jews' "hearts were sealed by Allah," an anti-Semitic slur likewise taken from the Koran (Surah 2:7). That verse does not specifically refer to Jews but rather to non-believers, notes PMW, and says they cannot improve because their "evil nature" has been "sealed."

"Indeed, those who disbelieve - it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them - they will not believe. Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and over their vision is a veil. And for them is a great punishment," reads the verse (2:6- 2:7).

In short, by applying the verse to Jews the PA cleric said Jews have a "sealed evil nature" and cannot improve, and are destined for "great punishment" as explained in the Koran.

It may come as no surprise that the PA has frequently employed similar Muslim anti-Semitic invective, with a poem read on PA TV last September calling Jews the "most evil among creations," "barbaric monkeys" and "wretched pigs."

Likewise the PA Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein has said Muslims are in a religious war against the Jews - calling them the "descendants of apes and pigs."