"You'll be safe with us!"
"You'll be safe with us!"Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90

The Editor-in-Chief of a major Palestinian news network, Maan News Agency, has delivered an astonishing monologue in which he denies Jewish rights to an independent state and declares that Jews will only ever be secure under Arab rule.

Dr. Nasser al-Laham delivered his three-minute-long statement last Wednesday on Maan Network Online, which has since been translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Maan News Agency is one of the largest in the Palestinian Authority, and claims to be independent of any political factions.

Somewhat confusingly, al-Laham zig-zags between validating Jewish history as outlined in the Bible and elsewhere, while simultaneously denying any "Jewish identity" or claims to the Land of Israel.

"The Jews wandered in the Sinai Desert for 40 years, and it seems that they are wandering even today north of Sinai, that is, in Palestine," he begins.

What follows is a breathtaking rewriting of history, in which the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem is portrayed as a man who "gave the Jews protection," mixed with some truly creative portrayals of Jewish history and rituals.

"The Jews never had a golden age, except under Arab and Islamic states," he says. "Every time the Arabs were ousted the Jews would be driven from their homes and beaten senseless."

Yet his first choice of example is the Babylonian exile after the invasion of the Kingdom of Judea by King Nebuchadnezzar, which occurred around 597 BCE - many centuries before any Arab presence in the area.

During their exile from the very land he goes on to claim they never had any history in "the Jews kept crying until their eyes bled," al-Laham "recounts."

Then, "when Europe placed them in the ghetto prisons 150 years ago, they fled to Palestine," he says, summing up the rise of political Zionism, which sought to reestablish the Jewish people in their ancient homeland.

It gets better, with al-Laham claiming that at that point "the Palestinians allowed them to build the kibbutzim and the moshavim," with no mention of the numerous massacres of Jews carried out by their Arab neighbors.

Instead, he protrays a blissful existence during which the Jews "lived under the protection of (Ottoman) Sultan Abdul Hamid and Hajj Amin al-Husseini," the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem who famously met Hitler and encouraged him in his quest to annihilate the Jews.

"They fled as refugees in boats from Europe to the Jaffa port," al-Laham says of the Jewish refugees from Europe. "They came like locusts, and we fed them oranges and gave them fresh water, until they bit the hand that was extended to help them."

"Now they want to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to build a false temple," he continued, echoing the constant incitement by the Palestinian Authority before detailing an utterly indiscernible "Jewish" ritual: "So they prepared nine red cows, four calves, a rabbi, a Maimonides, stolen gold and a scabies-stricken goat and said that they were looking for the messiah's donkey."

"They have turned the stables of our horses in to a wailing wall for their tears," he added, referring to the Kotel.

"Another wandering generation of Jews seeking an identity, seeking a savior, and searching in our homes and under our feet for the remains of the shattered menorah."

"They tried and will try to establish a state for the Jews," but to no avail, he states, apparently unaware of the existence of a thriving Jewish state next door. 

Instead, he asserts, the Jews will have safety and security "only under the protection of an Arab state."

Presumably the same Arab "state" which refers to them in such glowing terms.