Senior Palestinian Cleric in Lebanon, Bassam Al-Kayed: European Jews Committed the Worst Sins; TV Host: MLK Said Jews Were Shedders of Blood, Slayers of Prophets

Sheikh Bassam Al-Kayed, head of the Palestinian Islamic Scholars Association in Lebanon, said in a recent interview that “the Jews in Europe committed the worst sins.” “Everybody hated them,” he added. “They were the epitome of evil.” According to Sheikh Al-Kayed, the Europeans created a country for the Jews in order to get rid of them and to create “a wedge in the middle of the nation.” These remarks came in response to a question about Christian support for the Jews despite their alleged hatred of them. The host, Saad Iskandarani, cited several antisemitic quotes from Martin Luther’s treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, which he erroneously attributed to Martin Luther King. The interview aired on the Lebanese Al-Quds TV on November 3, 2017.

TV Host Saad Iskandarani: Martin Luther King [sic] says in his book On the Jews and Their Lies that of all ugly forms of idolatry the Jews perform the ugliest, of all evil tendencies they exhibit the most evil, and their hearts are hard. The Jews tried to please God by killing the prophets. The Jews, says Martin Luther King, are, beyond dispute, shedders of blood, and are hostile toward the Christians. The last sentence drew my attention: The Jews are hostile toward the Christians. The Jews say that Jesus was born of fornication, and they say harsh things about Mary too.

Bassam Al-Kayed: If you heard what it is said in the Talmud, you'd be amazed.

Saad Iskandarani: I will give you time to speak. Nevertheless, those Christians - I'm talking about official Christianity, not about the people... Nevertheless, the Christians provide the Jews with all their expertise, money, media, and so on. Why?

Bassam Al-Kayed: It is all about interests. As I told you, their religious belief stipulates that because they hate and loathe the Jews, and in order to hasten the arrival of Jesus in order to slaughter the Jews, they support them. That's what it is. This is from the religious perspective. Politically, there are many issues. First, the Jews in Europe committed all the worst sins. Everybody hated them. You can see how they were looked upon in politics, economy, and so on. Even the British poet Shakespeare, in his play The Merchant of Venice, depicts the Jew in the most loathsome, filthy, and despicable way possible. This is the Jew. This is the usurious Jew. This is how the Jew has always been. They were sowing corruption everywhere. They were the epitome of evil. Europe in its entirety wanted to get rid of them. How would they get rid of the Jews? They came up with the idea of establishing a country for them and sending them there. So the first point is that they wanted to be rid of the Jews. The second point is that because the [Europeans] hate our nation, they wanted to create a state as a wedge in the middle of the nation - a state that would split it into two. They wanted to keep us preoccupied with ourselves, and to keep the Jews preoccupied with us. They wanted someone to protect their economic and political interests in the region - and who better than those [Jews]? So they established an entity for them. They wanted to weaken the nation through conflicts, because they are familiar with the hostility between the Muslims and the Jews. They wanted to ignite this hostility, and to make the Jews a striking force that would sustain their colonialist enterprise in the region.

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