Palestinians: Don’t Kill American Jews, Only Israeli Jews

Have the Palestinians reformed, or is their new message: Don’t kill American Jews, but continue to kill Israeli Jews?

By: United with Israel Staff and PMW

In a rare move, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Saturday’s murder of 11 Jews in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by the anti-Semite Robert Bowers.

The ministry condemned the “terror attack” that “cost the lives of Jewish American citizens,” referring to the neo-Nazi ideology as “based on the supremacy of the white race and its hegemony.”

Palestinian Media Watch, a watchdog that monitors Palestinian incitement and anti-Semitism, pointed out that this condemnation of the murder of Jews is a remarkable change from the standard Palestinian Authority (PA) message to Palestinians, which usually consists of a call to murder Jews.

PMW noted that for years, PA policy has been to present the conflict with Israel as both a nationalistic war to destroy Israel and an Islamic war to kill Jews. Indeed, the messages of the PA leadership since it launched its terror campaign against the Jewish state has been to kill Israelis because they are Jews.

As recently as last week, PMW reported on an anti-Semitic sermon in which the Palestinian preacher taught that Hitler was one of a series of people sent by Allah throughout history to punish the Jews because of their evil behavior.

“Does the PA’s condemnation of the murder of American Jews mean that their religious ideology has undergone a change and they will no longer demonize Israelis because they are Jews, nor promote the murder of Israelis because they are Jews? Or does it mean that the new PA message is: Don’t kill American Jews but continue to kill Israeli Jews?” PMW asked.

Numerous Palestinian Calls to Kill Jews

PMW has recorded numerous instances starting from the PA’s terror campaign in 2000 in which the PA expressed its policy demonizing Israelis because they were Jews and calling to kill Israelis specifically because they were Jews.

For instance, Dr. Ahmed Yousuf Abu Halabiah, a member of the Palestinian Shari’ah Islamic religious law courts stated on PA TV in 2000 that “the Jews are the Jews, whether Labor or Likud, the Jews are the Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars… They must be butchered and they must be killed, as Allah said [in the Quran]: ‘Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands. He will humiliate them, and grant you victory over them.'”

He added that “the Jews are like a spring: As long as you step on it with your foot, it doesn’t move. But if you lift your foot off the spring, it hurts you and punishes you.”

Dr. Mahmoud Mustafa Najem, a PA religious figure, said in 2002 that “the Prophet Muhammad, whom the Jews tried to murder more than once, by poisoning, by witchcraft by throwing stones at him and by all kinds of political assassination. He warned us of the Jews, the evil of the Jews and the deceit of the Jews… He waged war on them and expelled them from Arabia, saying: ‘There shall not be two religions in Arabia.’ He explained the character of the Jew in the Quran and in the Sunna (Islamic traditions) so that we would beware of them all the time and so that we would know how to deal with the Jews … Say to the Jews: ‘Expect your graveyard! Expect the final battle.'”

‘Jews Are the Cause of All Catastrophes’

Ibrahim Mudayris, official, PA Ministry of Religious Trusts and Religious Affairs, stated in 2004 that Allah changed the direction of prayer from Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to Mecca because of “those [Jews] who are the cause of all catastrophes on earth. The reason for it is those [Jews] who spit their poisons at the international and regional level, those [Jews] who are the reason for every disaster of the world.”

Dr. Tayseer Al-Tamimi, Chief Justice of the PA’s Religious Court and Chairman of Supreme Council of Islamic Law, stated in 2009 that “concerning the Jews, the Holy Quran says that they lack understanding, are void of wisdom, know nothing, violate agreements, etc. However, the Jews were known – it was known about them throughout history – that they make false claims, lies, forgery, slander, and fabrications, in order to justify their aggression, land theft, defilement of holy sites, appropriation of land, destruction of homes, murder of children, women, and the elderly.”

Imad Hamato, appointed by Mahmoud Abbas to serve as dean of the Gaza Al-Azhar schools, stated in 2015 that “humanity will never live in comfort as long as the Jews are causing devastating corruption throughout the land. Humanity will never live in peace or fortune or tranquility as long as they are corrupting the land. An old man told me: If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are behind it. As Allah says: ‘Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah extinguished it. They strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does not like corrupters.'”