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Daily Mail calls Temple Mount “Islamic Holy Site”, smears Jewish worshippers

Agence France Press has produced an article on an incident at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem which was published by the Daily Mail with the headline “Jordan slams Israel after radical Jews visit Islamic Holy Site”.

The Temple Mount is a sacred site for Jews, Christians and Muslims, but it is the holiest site in the world for Jews, and at the centre of much Jewish liturgy. Whilst it is the third holiest site in Islam, to describe it as an “Islamic Holy Site” which has somehow been intruded upon by Jews is to erase Jewish connections to the Temple Mount.

Moreover, to call Jews who wish to visit the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av, a day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, “radical Jews” is simply untrue.

Whilst the Daily Mail does acknowledge later in the article that the Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, it does not challenge the idea that Jews who wish to visit it are “extremists”

Jordan’s Minister of Islamic Affairs and Awqaf (religious property) Wael Arabiyat described allowing Jews to visit their holiest site as “tyranny” and ominously said that it could provoke a religious war.

The current ‘status quo’ arrangement is that only Muslims are allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. Jews who pray or show signs of being emotional on the Temple Mount are often arrested by Jordanian religious police.

UK Media Watch has challenged the Daily Mail over the headline, which remains as of yet unchanged.

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Everyday Antisemitism Incitement Jordan Other Social Media Ξ E-mail

Abu Qatada discusses Holocaust and Protocols in antisemitic YouTube broadcast

Notorious Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada has denied the Holocaust, praised the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and spread the blood libel in a video on his YouTube channel.

The Salafi Islamist preacher, who formerly lived in the UK and was imprisoned and then deported to Jordan after being suspected of links to terrorism, discussed the issues last month in the 24th instalment of a series titled “1000 Books Before Death”.

While discussing the Protocols, he began to claim that Jews use gentile blood in matzos, saying: “There are two [issues] that are, in fact, one and the same. The first issue is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the second is the Jewish matzos. They both constitute the first issue.

“The second issue is the Holocaust. … In the first three years when we were jailed together with common criminals, they would tell us to come out of our cells. Where are we going? To a big get-together to commemorate the Holocaust… Britain in its entirety commemorates the Holocaust, even the prisoners. The Holocaust is their claim that Hitler killed six million in the gas chambers. This is a worthless lie, of course. Even the burning of Jews did not happen. They would burn the dead. When someone in the Jewish camps died, where could they bury him? They would throw him into the oven. That’s all there was to it. They claimed that six million Jews were killed in the fighting. The number of Jews in Europe before the war was six million. It is a lie, which they blew out of proportion in order to benefit from it.

“A Jewish journalist wrote a book titled The Holocaust Industry. The Jews peddle this. It is an industry. They fabricated it and used it to drain the world.”

Abu Qatada then returned to the programme’s ostensible topic, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

“If anyone talks about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they turn him into a laughing stock,” he said. “He is regarded as a lunatic who does not belong to humanity. Who can even mention The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? What is even stranger is [what happens] when someone talks of the matzos of Zion. Do you know about the Jewish matzos, which are eaten on the Jewish holiday? Let me talk a little about the matzos before moving to the Protocols, their history, and the attempts to deny them … there is a text in the Talmud… It says that the matzos eaten by the Jews on their holiday must be consecrated with the blood of a man from among the Gentiles. Usually they take a Christian because they cannot overpower a Muslim. This actually happened, yet they treat it as a mockery. … If you say this in the West they mock you. ‘Who would eat blood?’ they say. But this is the truth.”

He went on to repeat conspiracy theories about Jewish financial and geopolitical influence, stating: “The Jews control the world and that is a fact. The Jews run the global economy, that is a fact. … The West hates the Jews for a reason. They view the Jews as bloodsuckers. They view them as usurers who suck the blood of the people.”

Source: MEMRI

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Books Everyday Antisemitism Jordan Retail Ξ E-mail

WH Smith removes Mein Kampf from branch in Jordan and promises franchise policy review in letter to CAA

Following the shocking revelation that a WH Smith branch was stocking Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic diatribe, Mein Kampf, on its “Bestselling Books” shelf, WH Smith’s CEO has written to Campaign Against Antisemitism promising swift action.

We were contacted by supporters who had read an article in The Jerusalem Post which showed photographs of an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf for sale at WH Smith at Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. That Mein Kampf is a bestseller in many Arab countries is a sad reminder of the deep-rooted antisemitism across the Middle East, but we were nonetheless shocked to find WH Smith apparently catering to demand.

We immediately contacted the retailer and received a swift and unequivocal apology from CEO Steve Clarke.

WH Smith’s branch in the airport is operated by a franchised affiliate, and WH Smith can take no punitive action against the staff involved. The book has however been removed from the shelves and WH Smith has confirmed that stocking Mein Kampf is already banned under the company’s ranging policy which franchisees must obey. The company’s international management team are now reviewing their franchise policies following the incident to ensure that they are sufficiently robust should this reoccur.

We regret that the person who decided to stock Mein Kampf will almost certainly go without sanction or education, but we accept that is not within WH Smith’s power. We welcome WH Smith’s speedy and appropriate response.