Jpost front page article on PMW's exposure of Islamic preacher's antisemitic teachings
Jpost front page report on PMW's exposure
of Islamic preacher's hate speech
of Islamic preacher's hate speech
Note: This article was first published on The Jerusalem Post's website on June 3, 2015. It appeared on the newspaper's front page on June 4, 2015. Click here to view PMW's exposure of the Sheikh's preachings.
Headline: PA preacher comes under fire for preaching blood libel on Temple Mount
Sub-Headline: Jewish condemnation ‘doesn’t matter,’ Sheikh Khaled Al-Mughrabi tells Post
by Sam Sokol
A Palestinian preacher brushed off accusations of anti-Semitism on Wednesday after Jewish groups objected to his propagation of blood libel stories in his sermons at Jerusalem’s Al-Aksa Mosque.
'It doesn’t matter what they said,' Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi told The Jerusalem Post when asked about objections to his homily made by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Mughrabi, who teaches religious classes at the mosque, is an employee of the Wakf, the Muslim religious trust controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
In a lecture published online and translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Mughrabi accused Jews of slaughtering gentile children and draining their blood for use in Passover matzot, a centuries-old European anti-Semitic trope.
'The Children of Israel... 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,' he asserted.
In response, the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote directly to King Abdullah of Jordan and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, urging them to denounce the preacher’s statements and make the Wakf “permanently ban Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi from ever using the grounds holy to our faiths to spread his deceitful and dangerous lies.”
Neither Abdullah nor Abbas have responded to the letter, Simon Wiesenthal Center associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Post .
Palestinian Media Watch accused the Palestinian Authority of regularly trafficking in blatant anti-Semitism, citing a recent PA television program in which the host stated that 'Israel is a cancerous tumor... [ Jews] are usurers... They control the media, the money, the press, the resources, the plans.'”
[http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/PA-preacher-comes-under-fire-for-preaching-blood-libel-on-Temple-Mount-404956]