Honenu filed a complaint with the police, demanding that they investigate and try Sheikh Khaled al-Mughrabi, who gave a sermon on Har Habayis in which he claimed that the Jews are slaughtering non-Jewish children in order to use their blood in matza.

Mughrabi’s statements which were publicized during the second week of June in the Israeli and international media, generated a storm. Honenu is waiting to see if the police will take action against him.

The “Palestinian Media Watch” website publicized the sermon in which Mughrabi said, among other statements, that “Vampires are blood sucking animals and Satan puts nonsense into the Jews’ heads that if they drink other people’s blood in a special manner then they will merit everlasting life.” Mughrabi added that, “On Passover the Jews were accustomed to divide up into groups and each group grabbed a child, slaughtered him and baked matzos with his blood,” and further added that each group had a barrel called “the barrel of nails”, into which the child was placed so that the nails would cause his blood to flow and drain through a spout in the bottom of the barrel into the matza dough which was kneaded with the blood.

Mughrabi continued his sermon, stating that, “The Jewish ritual of bloodshed led to every Holocaust which befell European Jewry until in the end the Europeans expelled all the Jews from their land, and the Germans burned the Jews because they were always drinking so much children’s blood.”

Honenu attorney Menashe Yado turned to the Old City District Police in Jerusalem and demanded that Mughrabi be investigated for incitement to violence and racism and also slander of a specific population.

Honenu: “There is a man who sits in the State of Israel and creates serious propaganda against the People of Israel and the Torah of Israel, and uses lies which have caused huge damages and persecutions of the People of Israel over the years. Although the statements are so very mendacious and distorted, we must defend ourselves and refute the inciteful claims and fight those who incite against the Jewish People, particularly the incitement which comes out of the Temple Mount, and the lawlessness which the State of Israel allows on the holiest site in the world.”

In a related matter, during the second week of June the police informed Yado that his complaint against Sheikh Issam Amira for incitement to violence and terror for a sermon he gave on Har Habayis had been transferred to the Attorney General’s office for examination to determine whether or not the sheikh’s sermon constitutes incitement.

In December 2014, Honenu attorney Hur Uriel Nizri filed a complaint against Sheikh Omar Abu Sara for incitement after the sheik gave sermons on Har Habayis in which he called for the murder of Jews. Following the complaint the sheikh was detained, an indictment was filed against him and he was given an order banning him from ascending Har Habayis.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)