In his March 14, 2024 column in the Qatari Al-Sharq daily, Abdullah Al-Amadi, a former advisor to the Qatari education minister and deputy editor of the newspaper, wrote that the war in Gaza is an exact repeat of how the Jews of the Arabian Peninsula schemed against the Muslims in the days of the Prophet Muhammad.
Calling for the murder of anyone cooperating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of his government, he said that this would be the same as the fate that befell Hay bin Akhtab, the leader of the Jewish Bani Nadir tribe who was executed together with his son on Muhammad's orders, and the Jewish poet Ka'b bin Ashraf, also murdered by supporters of Muhammad.
Al-Amadi stressed in his column that the Jews' anti-Muslim hatred, resentment, and fanaticism is deeply rooted in them, from the time of the Prophet to this day, and that the Jews are crafty and deceptive and violate agreements and promises. Thus, he said, the Muslims must not show them any flexibility or waste their time negotiating with them. He added that "the Jews of the past are the Jews of today," and that like their forefathers they are striving today to harm every single Muslim.
He added that the Israeli military was working to expel the Palestinians from Gaza in order to advance the "filthy American plan to build a port in Gaza," to occupy the northern Gaza Strip, and to take over the natural gas reserves off the Gaza coast.
It should be noted that following the normalization agreements signed by Israel and several Arab countries in 2020, Al-Amadi published a similar article, claiming that the Quran presents "a historic truth" about the Jews, namely that they hate the Muslims and will continue to hate them until the Day of Judgment.[1] In a column from November 2021, he devoted a long discussion to a story that appears in the Quran and the Hadith, according to which Allah turned some Jews into apes and pigs as a punishment for disobeying Him.[2]
Abdullah Al-Amandi (Image: Al-Sharq, Qatar)
The following are translated excerpts from Al-Amadi's March 14, 2024 column:[3]
"It is no surprise that the Quran elaborated on the Jews in Surat Al-Baqarah [the second surah of the Quran]… exposing their character and their attitude towards the prophets and even towards Allah [Himself]. [The Quran] did so for a very serious reason, which is pivotal to our discourse today…
Qurayza, Banu Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Khaybar were Jewish tribes that settled in Al-Madina. They were more knowledgeable than the illiterate Muslims, and boasted about their knowledge to the Arabs, including their knowledge about the Last Prophet [who was about to appear]. They, or some of them, hoped that this prophet would be one of them, so when he turned out to be an Arab from the Hashem clan and the Quraysh tribe [i.e., the Prophet Muhammad], these [Jewish] tribes soon revealed their ugly face, became overtly and covertly hostile and denied what Allah revealed to his honorable Prophet. They were the first to renounce the Prophet, even though they knew of his coming [in advance].
"The Quran exposes the truth about the Jews. Surat Al-Baqarah starts with stories about them, as though addressing the Jews of Al-Madina and reminding them of their ancient forefather's relationship with Allah's prophet Moses and other prophets. It reminds them of their history, which reflects all [their traits]: their cunning, dishonesty and repeated violation of promises and treaties despite the trials and tribulations they suffered as punishment for their deeds. Every time they recover from a fall they immediately fall into another pit. All the disasters did not help them [learn], did not deter them and did not change their nature, generation after generation.
"The hostility of the Jews towards the Muslim community, which continues from those days until today, is different from [the hostility] of all the other nations towards Islam and the Muslims, for their resentment, jealousy and hatred are ingrained in them. In fact, it seems that [these sentiments] were handed down from generation to generation, until this very day. What is now happening in Gaza, for example, is no different from [the plot] hatched by the Jewish Banu Nadir tribe against the Prophet, or from the Banu Qurayza's betrayal of the Muslims, which followed a similar betrayal by the Qaynuqa and Khaybar tribes.
"The Jews of the past are the Jews of today. In their modern form, they distanced themselves even further from the laws of Moses and of the monotheistic religions, compared to their forefathers in Al-Madina or during the many centuries before this. They became Zionists, who have no [connection] whatsoever with religions, morality or values. In fact, their hostility, barbarity and crimes against the Muslims in Gaza have grown worse, and they mean to harm every Muslim everywhere, if they can.
"Therefore, we find that the extensive discourse in the Quran about the Children of Israel is simply meant to warn the Muslims in every era about the danger posed by this group that is filled with hatred for mankind… Moses did not escape their cunning and dishonest nature, so will anyone else fare any better?...
"What is happening in Gaza [today] is an exact replica of what the leaders of the [Jewish] Banu Nadir tribe, and later the Banu Qurayza tribe, plotted against the Muslim community of Al-Madina. They use the same methods and the same rationale, aimed at uprooting and exterminating the Muslims. Today they continue their genocidal plan in Gaza, which is considered to be the [stronghold] of the fiercest and clearest Sunni resistance to their plans, by razing its buildings to the ground and planning to reoccupy it along with the U.S. and the West and some hypocrite Arabs. They kill, arrest and plunder in the name of their distorted Torah, without distinguishing between children, women and men; all people are equally subjected to massacre and extermination. Therefore, it can be said that this criminal occupation precisely reenacts the stories about the Banu Nadir and Banu Qurayza [tribes and their treatment of] the Muslims.
"Allah told the [Muslim] nation from its very inception about people like these and their character. One must not be flexible or engage in diplomacy with them, or waste time on exhausting negotiations… or on shuttling between Arab and Western capitals while their cowardly army, which is supported by the U.S. and the West, destroys the neighborhoods [of Gaza] along with their residents and trees. Then they pave roads to [the site of] the filthy American plan to build a port in Gaza in the guise of humanitarian aid, which is actually meant to lay the groundwork for expelling the surviving Gazans from the country, and nothing more. This is in preparation for occupying the area around the port, or the northern Gaza Strip, as part of a larger plan: to take over Gaza's [natural] gas resources, which foreign companies wish to seize.
"According to many reports, the criminal occupation state [always] planned to put its hands on these Muslim resources, but [Operation] Al-Aqsa Flood [i.e., Hamas' October 7 attack] revealed things that had been hidden, exposing these shameful plots and the face of all the criminals in the international [community] that are collaborating with the Jews of the [present-day] Qurayza and Nadir tribes, and with Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and others. Today there is nobody to give them the treatment they deserve, the treatment that was meted out to their forefathers Hay bin Akhtab, [4] Ka'b bin Ashraf [5] and others. Sadly, this treatment is absent today…"
[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1634 – Antisemitism, Holocaust Denial In Qatari Press – April 28, 2022.
[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 9660 - Article In Qatari Daily On The Islamic Tale Of Allah's Punishment Of The Jews By Changing Them Into Apes And Pigs – December 2, 2021.
[3] Al-Sharq (Qatar), March 14, 2024.
[4] Hay bin Akhtab (Hay bin Ahituv) was one of the leaders of the Banu Nadir tribe in the time of the Prophet, until the Battle of Khaybar in 628 between the Jews and the Muslims. When the Muslim forces surrounded the surviving Jews in Yathrib (Al-Madina), the Prophet ordered to execute Hay bin Akhtab and his son.
[5] According to the Hadith, Ka'b bin Ashraf (d. 624) was a poet, the son of a Jewish mother from the Banu Nadir tribe and an Arab father from the Banu Tayy tribe, who mocked the prophet Muhammad and was killed by the Muslims. According to one of the versions in the Hadith he was killed with the Prophet's knowledge and blessing, and according to another he was beheaded and his head was brought to the Prophet.
