Fresh Palestinian Wishes for Israel's Annihilation

In January, reporter Richard Behar called out the media for ignoring newly uncovered recordings showing Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi referring to Jews as "the descendants of apes and pigs" and saying that Muslims should "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews…"

"Surely, if the president of virtually any other country in the world had defamed an entire people in such a way — only a couple years before they got the top job, to boot — it would have at least gotten a few column-inches," Behar wrote. "Yet Morsi gets a free pass."

This week brings two bone-chilling examples of Palestinian radicalism from supposedly "moderate" voices that, thus far, have gone largely unnoticed in American media. First came a Palestinian Media Watch video of senior Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub wishing he could drop a nuclear bomb on Israel. In an April 30 interview with a Lebanese television station, Rajoub – the ruling Fatah Party's Central Committee deputy secretary and head of the PA's Olympic committee – said, "I swear that if we had a nuke, we'd have used it this very morning" during a discussion of efforts to renew peace talks.

A Google news search identifies the Washington Times as the only American news outlet to report on Rajoub's statement. The Palestinian Media Watch report also cited Abu Al-Einein, a former advisory to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and head of the Palestinian Council for NGO Affairs, praising a man who stabbed to death an unarmed Israeli as a "heroic fighter."

In Hamas-controlled Gaza, meanwhile, Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, considered the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual guide, urged Palestinians to never seek peaceful compromise with Israel.

"Our wish should be that we carry out Jihad to death," Qaradawi said.

Qaradawi, hailed by American Islamist organizations, also said that "Palestine was never a Jewish homeland," and that it "was and will remain Arab and Islamic. The homeland cannot be sold for money."

This rhetoric is not new for Qaradawi – who last month boycotted an interfaith gathering in Qatar because it might mean sharing a platform with Jews – and previously has endorsed Muslim nations' obtaining nuclear weapons "to terrorize thereby the enemy of God and your enemy" and said he prayed for a chance to "shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews" before he died. In 2004, he joined in a statement advocating attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq as "a shari'a duty incumbent upon anyone belonging to the Muslim nation."

Related Topics: IPT News, Palestinian Authority, Jibril Rajoub, Abu Al-Einein, Yusuf al-Qaradawi

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