Sheik Omar Abu Sara, a Palestinian preacher who called to slaughter the Jews, describing them as “the most evil of Allah’s creations,” was convicted by an Israeli court on Monday of incitement to violence and incitement to racism.
In December 2014, Abu Sara delivered a spontaneous sermon at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during which he stated that “talking about the traits of the Jews requires one to get into a special mode, because we are dealing with people to whom every single vile trait has been attributed. They were the masters of these vile traits, and they taught their secrets to others.”
Echoing medieval anti-Semitic themes, Abu Sara proclaimed: “I say to the Jews loud and clear [that] the time for your slaughter has come. The time to fight you has come. The time to kill you has come. Allah willing, we are ready for the task – we and the loyal and faithful Muslims, along with the armies of the state of the Islamic Caliphate, which will come to liberate this land from your filth.”
“Now, at the end of the verdict, we will set aside the law books and their learned assertions and look for a moment at the reality of our lives. Jews and Arabs live together in the State of Israel. This is a fact that is not disputed and which, it appears, will not change in the near future,” the court wrote in its verdict. “The defendant and those of his ilk use their words to generate constant tension” which results are apparent in the recent wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks, the court said.
Judge Shmuel Herbst. (Court Spokesman)
“This is the time to stop the incitement, online, at public gatherings and at holy places of worship,” the court declared in its ruling.
“I look at the defendant and see a person,” wrote Judge Shmuel Herbst. “It is very unfortunate that he looks at me and sees a monkey or pig that should be destroyed without mercy.”
The judge was relating to Abu Sara’s statement that “it was the Jews whom Allah turned into apes and pigs, and afflicted with degradation and humiliation.”
Israel has been combating the phenomenon of incitement by the Palestinian religious and political leadership, which has led to much bloodshed.
Earlier in March, Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi, an infamous hatemonger and Muslim preacher who used the pulpit on the Temple Mount to incite against Israel and the Jews, was sentenced by an Israeli court to 11 months in prison and another six-month suspended sentence.
Palestinian preachers habitually use the Al-Aqsa pulpit to promote anti-Semitism, hatred of America and to incite terror.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel