In a speech delivered last week, Mahmoud al-Habbash, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Islamic affairs and a Supreme Sharia Judge, called Israel evil and referred to it as “Satan’s project,” Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported on Sunday.
“The conflict here in Palestine between us and the criminal occupation and its criminal leaders, is a further manifestation of our trials, a further manifestation of the historic conflict between truth and falsehood, between good and evil. Throughout history, there has been a conflict between good and evil. The good is represented by the prophets and their supporters. The evil is represented by the devils and their supporters, by the satans and their supporters. We are not inventing anything new here (i.e., Palestinian-Israeli). This is a conflict between two entities, good and evil, between two projects: Allah’s project vs. Satan’s project, a project connected to Allah, which is his will – true and good – and a project connected to oppression and Satanism, to Satanism and animosity, occupation and barbarism.”
Earlier this year, Habbash said that the Western Wall is part of the al-Aqsa mosque and that “non-Muslims had no right to it.” Last year, he said that Jesus was a Palestinian.
In 2010, Habbash said that Palestinians would go to war over Jerusalem, while in 2013 he suggested that any peace reached with Israel would be temporary. In 2014, he declared before an audience of PA officials, including Abbas, that the Palestinians would launch a jihad against Israel. Abbas applauded Habbash’s remarks.
A number of Israeli security experts and some Palestinian activists have identified incitement by Palestinian leaders, which often has religious overtones, as the root of this latest wave of terror.
Last week, the Times of Israel reported that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who was appointed to his position by Abbas in 2006, “denied that there has ever been a Jewish shrine atop the Temple Mount, despite rich archaeological and textual evidence to the contrary, including from Muslim sources.” A day later, the Times reported on the sermon of an imam in Gaza who praised the recent stabbing attacks against Israelis and, holding up a suicide vest, said, “We will use it to turn you into body parts, we will annihilate you with it, we will turn you into lifeless corpses and scattered body parts.”
This past September, days before speaking at the United Nations, Abbas declared that Palestinians would not allow Israelis to desecrate Jerusalem holy sites with their “filthy feet,” and said that he welcomes “every drop of blood” spilled for the city.
[Photo: Issam Rinawi / FLASH90 ]