Rampant anti-Semitism is being taught twice a week at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, located on the Temple Mount - the holiest site in Judaism.
Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi holds bi-weekly classes at the mosque, and a video of his class from last Friday translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reveals him demonizing the Jewish people and the Jewish religion in classic Western and Muslim anti-Semitic tropes.
In the video Al-Mughrabi makes a wide variety of outlandish claims and spouts a range of conspiracy theories in accusing Judaism of paganism, human sacrifice and devil worship, all of which directly contradict Jewish texts and theology.
He presents the age old fictitious blood libel - accusing Jews of baking Pesach (Passover) matzah with the blood of non-Jewish children, a lie that was used to spur lethal pogroms and violence against Jews in Europe - as if it was fact.
"These stories are known. There is proof of them...write: 'Jews' bread' in Google...you will see all of these stories, and for all of them there is proof and evidence, with dates and police files in which the material is found," said the sheikh.
He also told the Muslims taking part in his class at the Al-Aqsa Mosque that Jews would "look for a small child, kidnap and steal him, bring a barrel called the barrel of nails...they would put the small child in the barrel and his body would be pierced by these nails. In the bottom of the barrel they would put a faucet and pour the blood."
Not only did Al-Mughrabi give credence to the anti-Semitic lies from medieval Europe, he also used them to justify the repeated expulsions of Jews in Europe and violent anti-Semitism in the continent throughout the ages as being "self-defense."
Following through with his line of false reasoning he justified the Holocaust, saying, "in the end it reached the point where they were burned in Germany, because of these things, because they kidnapped young children."
PA stamp of approval
The sheikh also accused Jews of being behind the September 11 attacks in the US, and said Jews sacrificed their friends and relatives to advance in the Freemasons, which he called "witchcraft gatherings of the Children of Israel."
"One of the ceremonies, for instance if someone wants to be accepted as a new member, or rise in rank...he has to somehow bring one of his sons or daughters, or his wife or one of his male or female relatives, and put them on the table and slaughter them with his own hands as a sacrifice to Satan, in order to rise in the ranks of the Freemasons. My brothers, this exists until today," claimed the sheikh to the raptly attentive audience.
But his lecture was not just the ravings of a lone Muslim religious authority.
PMW revealed that according to the Palestinian Authority (PA), religious lessons in all the mosques are supervised by the PA and require prior approval, meaning that the PA signed off on Al-Mughrabi's words.
In 2010, then-PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash was quoted by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida as he explained that "the mosques and everything related to them belong to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, from the employees - the imam, the speaker, the Koran teacher, the librarian, the caretakers and custodians."
He also noted that "the religious lessons, Koran study and other activities going on in the mosques require prior approval by the Ministry."