Top PA religious official: US Ambassador “spreads poison,” “claims this land is sacred to the Jews… this is based on fables”
Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Those who are not from among us, and not of this nation, and not of those who bear the flag that Allah's Messenger [Muhammad] left – their greatest wish is that we will be in distress, damaged, defeated… Listen to how Allah describes them: “Hatred has already appeared from their mouths” [Quran, 3:118]. When they speak, it is as if they are exhaling a deadly poison, even when they are smiling… Let‘s look around and see some of them: How they spread poison from their mouths. For example the so-called American Ambassador to the occupation state [Israel] who is called [David] Friedman. Take what he said [a few] days ago, while lying and saying foolish and misleading things, and claiming that we have no right to this land. [That] we are just passing through... A state that is less than 300 years old, which is America, comes to determine the fate of a land, a people, and a civilization that is more than 6,000 years old. How do you reach your verdict? On what do you rely? What idiocy has taken root in your heads that you would distort history and falsify Allah's words? This land – even before Abraham came – is the land of the Arab Palestinian Canaanites, who created its civilization even before it knew the Children of Israel… The grudge, hate, and enmity toward [our] nation that they are hiding are greater than what they are saying. This Friedman claims that this land is sacred to the Jews. Of course, all of this is based on fables and arbitrary narratives... The foreigners will leave, today or tomorrow. This land spits out its scum. It spits out everything that is foreign to it, and it will not be anything but ours.”
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman gave a speech at the Kohelet Forum on Jan. 8, 2020, in which he referred to the Pompeo Doctrine stating the American administration's position that Jewish “settlements” in the "West Bank" are not illegal, and noted the Jewish people's historical and legal right to Israel. Friedman spoke in particular about three disputed areas:
• Jerusalem: "From any and every vantage point, whether US law, biblical history, or the facts on the ground, it was undeniably true that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel."
• The Golan Heights: “[It is] obscene to think that the Syrian regime, a regime that lost the Golan after attempting to annihilate Israel and which, since 1967, has led the world in barbarism against its own people and others, could even compete with Israel on a claim to title. [US] President [Donald Trump] understood this and recognized as well the strategic importance to Israel of the Golan."
• The West Bank: "Judea and Samaria (i.e., the West Bank) – the name Judea says it all – is territory that historically had an important Jewish presence. As they say, it is the biblical heartland of Israel... Intuitively, who has a good claim to the land? Israel, whose historical and legal rights were recognized by the League of Nations; Jordan, which was there for only 19 years with virtually no legitimacy, and which, in any event, renounced its claim to territory West of the Jordan River in 1995; or the Ottomans, who washed their hands of Palestine after World War I. The answer, with all due respect to all the scholars, seems obvious."