PA Minister of Religious Endowments Insinuates That Sheik Qaradhawi Should Be Killed

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by PA Minister of Religious Endowments Mahmoud Habbash, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on May 10, 2013:

Mahmoud Habbash: Why did Sheik Qaradhawi or others think about coming to Gaza only in the wake of the rift and Hamas’s rebellion and coup? If we accept that they only agree to come to Gaza after its “liberation” – Gaza has been liberated since August 2005, when Israel redeployed, [disengaging] from the Gaza Strip. Why have they waited for so long? Why did they not come to Gaza when there was national unity? From August 2005 until June 2007, Gaza was under the unity provided by the Palestinian Authority, to which Hamas joined before turning against it.

Why did they not come all this time? It was because they wanted to come to another PA, another reality. This can only be interpreted as legitimizing and encouraging division and separatism. The [clerics] who dealt with the rebellious authority [of Hamas], which plundered Gaza, as if it were a legitimate authority are encouraging division and separatism. Thus, they fall under the category of people about whom the Prophet Muhammad said: “When you are holding to a single man as your leader, you should kill who seeks to undermine your solidarity or disrupt your unity”.

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