Israeli Islamic Movement Leader Kamal Khatib on Paris Attacks: The West Leads to Religious Wars

In a November 27 Friday sermon, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, Deputy Leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, said that the West was behind religious wars in the world today. On the Paris attacks he said: "What happened in Paris is not [proper] Muslim conduct, but still... 120 dead?! What are 120 dead compared to the 40,000 Protestants killed by Catholics in that very same Paris?" The sermon was delivered at the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Mosque in Kafr Kana.

Following are excerpts:

Kamal Khatib: Their hearts are full of hatred and animosity, yet they talk about human rights. What did they do to us in Andalusia? What did they do to us there? We Muslims conquered Andalusia and lived there for 800 years alongside the Christians. Why did the Muslims leave Andalusia all of a sudden, in 1512? Not a single Muslim stayed there after that year.

They formed the famous Inquisition courts, in order to search for adherents of Islam, down to the very last one. They would look for homes in which the lights were on early in the morning, in order to check if people had gotten up to pray, or for people wearing clean clothes on Fridays, whom they suspected of honoring this day. They would search for anyone who kept torn bits of Quran pages in his home, or anyone whose name sounded Muslim… They would kill them, burn them, slaughter them, and drag their bodies through the streets. This is what they did to us.

What did they do to us 20 years ago in Bosnia? What did they do to us two months ago in the Central African Republic? What are the Buddhists in Burma doing to us at this very moment?

The world dares to talk about religious wars?! What kind of a world is this?! What kind of a world is this?! What kind of a world?! In Paris, 128 French people were killed two weeks ago. The ISIS bombings… We are trying to prove that we are not like that. By God, we are so embarrassed that it looks as if we are groveling before them. I am not groveling when I say that this was not [proper] Muslim conduct.

What happened in Paris is not [proper] Muslim conduct, but still… 120 dead?! What are 120 dead compared to the 40,000 Protestants killed by Catholics in that very same Paris? In that very same Paris, the French Catholics killed 40,000 Protestants. They could not tolerate them. The Pope in Rome was so pleased with this "banquet"… Do you know what he did? He ordered the minting of a coin commemorating that "glorious" night, when the Catholics killed 40,000 Protestant Christians. And you are upset with ISIS for killing 128 people?! You criminals?!

You have pitted the whole world against Islam, portraying the Muslims as criminals, as bloodsuckers… Every Muslim living among you has become a target! Every veiled woman has become a target, every bearded man has become a target! Anyone who prays is a target! The mosques are targets! You dare to talk about human rights?! Who is behind these religious wars? As I said at the beginning, when you look at the world today, you see that it is bracing itself for religious wars. But who is causing these wars? They are.

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