Palestinian Imam Lays Out Islamist Agenda

On November 20, 2014, The Washington Post’s front page headline reporting on the cold-blooded murder of four Israeli rabbis and a Druze policeman by Palestinian terrorists in a Jerusalem synagogue read, “Synagogue attack stirs ‘religious war’ fears.” It would have been more accurate, however, to say the victims were the latest casualties of the radical Islamic war against the Jews.

Few people in government or among the media elites want to admit that a religious war has been going on for decades because it would not be politically correct. They don’t believe there are such things as religious wars in the 21^st century, even as they witness Shiites and Sunnites slaughtering each other in the name of their interpretation of Islam, Hindus and Muslims at odds in Pakistan and India, and a host of other religious-based conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa.

Not only is it inappropriate to discuss holy wars, it is also considered bigoted to suggest that the beliefs and practices of another religion are problematic at best and barbarous at worst. Thus, apologists for Islamic terror repeat the mantra that Islam is “a religion of peace,” and label anyone who suggests that some Muslims are holy warriors “Islamophobes.”

For decades the general public had little or no idea about what the radical Muslims were saying in their schools and mosques, so it was much easier to present the façade of Islamic pacifism. Today, however, we have ready access to many of the sermons and textbooks circulating around the Middle East, which prove a religious war is in progress, one waged by radical Muslims against the infidels (defined as anyone who is not a Muslim, or is a Muslim who does not accept the extremists’ interpretations of Islam).

Typically, making this case would involve a lot of explanation and examples, as well as citations of various statements by the radicals; however, a sermon by a Palestinian preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, manages to hit many of the themes of radical Islam in a single speech. Thanks to MEMRI it is possible to see a video and read excerpts of what Sheik Omar Abu Sara said last November:

“Let me start by saying 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. These traits were registered in the Quran, which depicted all aspects of the lives of the Jews in the most abominable images.”

Note that here and throughout the sermon, Abu Sara speaks of Jews, not Israelis. This is common among extremists, as seen in the Hamas charter. This is not a war against Israel or Zionists, the enemy is the Jews.

The sermon continues: “By Allah, the Jews are the most evil of Allah’s creations. They are the most evil creatures to have walked this Earth.”

Though Christians, Hindus and other faiths are also considered infidels, it is the Jews who are the worst of all Abu Sara says, because “they are the slayers of prophets. Ibn Al-Qayyim said that they had killed seventy prophets in one day, and that they had killed a total of over 10,000 prophets. They tried to kill our Prophet Muhammad twice, as far as we know.”

One theme that is repeated frequently by the Islamists is the transmogrification of the Jews. “It was the Jews,” says Abu Sara, “whom Allah turned into apes and pigs, and afflicted with degradation and humiliation.”

Another regular quotation recited by schoolchildren, Imams and Islamists is that Mohammed said: “You fight the Jews until the trees and the stones will say: Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.”

Unlike the Islamic State, which recently warned Christians to convert, pay tax or die, Abu Sara says Jews have only one option. “I say to the Jews loud and clear: 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.” He also calls on Allah to aid the Muslims. “Please do not leave in our hearts a single grain of mercy towards you, oh Jews, because when the day of your slaughter arrives, we shall slaughter you without mercy.”

Abu Sara ends his sermon with several calls for Allah to hasten the day of the slaughter of the Jews, to which the crowd repeatedly shouts “Amen.”

This is the ideology we are fighting against. The West offers little or no resistance except in the most extreme cases, such as the counterterror operations against al-Qaeda (though the Europeans are showing some signs of waking up to the threat to their societies of the growing radical Muslim population within their borders) Sunni and Shiite Muslims are fighting the war, but the outcome will not end the religious war, it will simply choose the branch of Islam that will lead the jihad for world domination. Jews are the only ones who are actively fighting this war because their lives depend on their victory.

Mitchell Bard, a UCLA PhD, is the author/editor of 24 books including The Arab Lobby, Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam’s War Against the Jews and After Anatevka – Tevye in Palestine.