Video: Palestinian Authority Cracks Down On Inciting Imams (Um, Sort Of)

Well, this makes for good publicity for the Palestinian Authority!




So according to the video:

• “1,800 mosques serve 2,000,000 Palestinians. PA seeks to curb influence of what it calls ‘political incitement from the pulpit.’”
• “70% of mosques have been liberated by PA.”
• A Hamas imam says “We incite against the Israeli occupation, but the incitement is not on an internal level, our duty is to resist the Israeli occupation.”

If that is all Hamas is worried about--that the PA was going to cut back on incitement against Israel--they need not have worried.

Here is the same Mahmoud Habash, Palestinian Minister of Religious Affairs, threatening war over Jerusalem back in August--with Mahmoud Abbas sitting in rapt attention:




The difference of course is that the world condemns the murder of Christians outright.
However, in the case of Israel, the world hesitates to condemn terrorism outright and stands aside while Palestinians attack Israel for a country the Arabs never had.

Also worth noting: while the CNN report is from yesterday, the news it is reporting is 5 months old--dating back to August.

The Jerusalem already reported about the Fatah crackdown on mosques back in August 2010:

Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday of “waging war on Islam and Allah” by detaining and firing hundreds of imams and banning the recitation of the Koran over loudspeakers on mosques.

The allegation followed a series of measures taken by the PA against Hamas supporters and institutions in the West Bank.

In fact, both the Jerusalem Post and CNN quote everyone's favorite Hamas imam, Hamed Bittawi:

Earlier this week, the PA government issued an order banning Sheikh Hamed Bittawi, a senior representative of Hamas in the West Bank and a leading Islamic scholar, from delivering sermons during Friday prayers.

Bittawi, who has frequently criticized the PA government’s policies in his sermons, said the decision to ban him from delivering sermons was tantamount to a “declaration of war on Allah.”

The only thing that is really new is that CNN is reporting this in the context of the publicity of the Muslim persecution of Christians.

Technorati Tag: Mahmoud Habash and Palestinian Incitement Against Israel and Palestinian Authority.