Subscribe Today
Request a Clip
The following are excerpts from a sermon delivered by PA Minister of Religious Endowments Mahmoud Al-Habbash, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on December 31, 2009.
Mahmoud Al-Habbash: Today, brothers, we have made progress towards a Palestinian state, but we could have been at an even more advanced stage, if not for the black coup that took place two and a half years ago, and if not for the rift, which the coup has bred, and which has divided our people – or at least, that is what some wanted to happen, in the service of non-Palestinian agendas.
[It serves] those who insist upon turning Palestine into a bargaining chip in the "political slave market." [It serves] those who imagine that the Palestinian people could ever accept being subservient to the people who killed Omar Ibn Al-Khattab and Hussein Ibn Ali. These people are delusional, and those who jump on their bandwagon are even more delusional. It is inconceivable that the Palestinian people will ever sell out its cause, or offer its cause for sale in the "political slave market."
We say with complete sincerity to the rulers of Iran: Enough interfering in our Palestinian affairs. Hands off our cause. The millions that you pay your mercenaries will not buy Palestine. You will not make us sell Palestine for all the money in the world. We are willing to sacrifice even our blood for the sake of Palestine, so how could we possibly sell it for a handful of money? Hands off our cause.
We say to those who caused the rift – and we address only the honorable and patriotic among them... As for the others, who have turned themselves into part of a machine that draws us further and further away from Palestine – we have nothing to say to them. We address only those who are patriotic, honorable, believing, and truly religious. We say to them: Is our Lord content with this rift? Is our Prophet content with this rift? The first step that is necessary now is to take a courageous stand from within the Gaza Strip – and I reiterate from within the Gaza Strip, not from Tehran or anywhere else, but from within the Gaza Strip. It will say: Now is the time to unite the Palestinian people.