Palestinian presidential advisor Mahmoud Habbash said in a Friday, September 9, 2022 sermon at the Fatima Al-Zahraa Mosque in Ramallah that European leaders "planted" the Jews as a foreign and isolated entity in the Middle East in order to accomplish their "colonialist, expansionist, and hostile goals." He continued to say that when the British left the region in 1948, they "stole" the money deposited by Palestinians in their banks and that Palestinians have the duty to demand these funds and to "persecute those thieves" using all the means at their disposal. The sermon was aired on Palestine TV.
Mahmoud Habbash: "Prime ministers, ministers of defense, and foreign ministers in the European colonialist countries, as well as philosophers, historians, and analysts, met in London, at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1902 or 1903.
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"[They said:] 'We must plant in the heart of this region an isolated entity, a nation that will be alien to the locals and their countries, but will be friendly to us. Let it be the Jews.' This is what they wanted. They only used the Jews to accomplish colonialist, expansionist, and hostile goals.
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"Did you know that when the British occupiers left in 1948 — having handed our country over to those [Jewish] foreigners — they stole the deposits that the Palestinians had in the banks? I don't think anybody is talking about this today.
"Well, today it is our right — no, it is our duty — to demand this [money], and to persecute those thieves, transgressors, plunderers, and killers, everywhere, using all the means at our disposal — all the means at our disposal, whatever they may be. We are not held captive by any option."