Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars and considered to be the leading decisor on Sunni Muslim religious law, called on Saturday for the wave of terror attacks against Israel to escalate.
In a message published to his official Facebook account, the sheikh - who is a spiritual guide for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Gazan offshoot Hamas - wrote that support of the Palestinian Arab terror war against Israel is "a religious obligation."
He went on to claim that "Jerusalem is in danger" of "Judaization and a removal of its Arab and Islamic character." His words are an apparent repetition of the false claim according to which Israel is changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, where the Jordanian Waqf continues to enjoy de facto control and ban Jewish prayer.
"Jerusalem does not belong to the Palestinians alone - they have first rights to it, and it doesn't belong to Arabs alone - they have first rights to defend it. Rather, it belongs to all Muslims, everyone according to his ability," wrote al-Qaradawi about the 3,000-year-old capital of the Jewish nation.
"We want to arouse the negligent, to awaken the sleeping, to remind those who forget, to reprove the hesitant, to reveal the traitors, to strengthen the hands of the mujahideen (jihadists - ed.) who refused to submit, freed themselves from the weakness and showed firmness in their will to live in honor or die as martyrs."