PA Ministry of ‘Religion’ Forces Preachers to Praise Terrorist in Sermons this Friday

Talking points issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs spin Udai Tamimi and martyrs as “heroes” who are are “a source of determination and strength for us all.”

By Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch

Palestinian preachers in mosques are not free to talk about whatever they want, but are dictated specific talking points for their Friday sermons by the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs, as documented by Palestinian Media Watch.

This is one of the ways the PA makes sure its policies, ideologies, and calls to action are spread to the Palestinians.

A fresh example is an October 21 directive instructing preachers to endorse murderer Udai Tamimi, glorify him as a “hero,” and stress the ideal of dying as a “martyr” for “Palestine” and to encourage others to follow in his footsteps.

Tamimi, the PA’s new role model is 22-year-old terrorist “martyr” Udai Tamimi, who shot and murdered 18-year-old female Israeli soldier Sgt. Noa Lazar and wounded an Israeli security guard at the Shuafat checkpoint in northern Jerusalem earlier this month. Tamimi managed to escape and 10 days later shot and wounded another Israeli security guard before other guards at the scene shot and killed him in self-defense.

Preachers were directed to tell worshippers in the mosques that:

• Tamimi “chose the loftiest status and gave that which is most precious to him – his life.”

• His life was “something insignificant [he gave] for the sake of Palestine and its holy sites.”

• “This hero died as a Martyr while charging forward and not fleeing.”

Preachers were also instructed to say that the terrorists who died while attacking Israel “wanted to meet Almighty Allah, and Allah wanted to meet them,” and that “Allah chose them to receive Martyrdom.”

Further talking points on “martyrs” and “martyrdom stressed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs include:

• Martyrs are “happy over what they sacrificed.”

• “Their souls are in lamps hanging from [Allah’s] throne and traversing Paradise freely”

• “Allah chose them to receive Martyrdom”

Preachers were also directed by the PA to stress that “The Martyrs’ acts of heroism, the sacrifices that they have made, and their pure blood have written for us an awe-inspiring history, and they are a source of determination and strength for us all.”