TORONTO — Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has alerted law enforcement and government officials about the imminent arrival to Canada of two radical Palestinian clergymen who it says hold problematic views that warrant an investigation.
Avi Benlolo
Avi Benlolo, FSWC president and CEO, said Ekrima Sabri, imam of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and Atallah Hannah, Greek Orthodox bishop of Sebastia, have each made statements about Jews that should concern the Canadian public. Canada’s immigration department and intelligence agencies “should investigate this and make an appropriate decision on behalf of all Canadians, to decide whether they should be admitted,” Benlolo said.
The two in question are featured guests at an April 5 event sponsored by Palestine House in Mississauga.
Benlolo said they have a long record of statements that are inconsistent with Canadian values of tolerance and human rights.
Sabri, who was appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by former Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat and served from 1994 to 2006, openly supports martyrdom operations against Israel, including those by children. “He’s also a Holocaust revisionist. He’s questioned the number of six million murdered and he’s called it a fairy tale,” Benlolo said.
An Internet search revealed that Sabri has taken an extreme position on relations with Jews. Speaking about child martyrs (suicide bombers), he told the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi in 2000 (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute) that, “the younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respect him.”
Asked in the interview about “the Jews who are besieging Al-Aqsa,” he said, “I enter the mosque of Al-Aqsa with my head up and at the same time I am filled with rage toward the Jews. I have never greeted a Jew when I come near one. I never will. They cannot even dream that I will. The Jews do not dare bother me, because they are the most cowardly creatures Allah has ever created.”
He is cited in other media reports praying a month before 9/11 for “Allah [to] destroy the United States, its helpers and agents.”
On Palestinian Authority radio in 1997 he said, “Oh Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews.” In the same radio broadcast, he said, “Allah will take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs.”
He has consistently denied any Jewish links to Jerusalem. “There is not even the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past,” he has said. “In the whole city, there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history.”
He went on to say, “It is the art of the Jews to deceive the world.”
He claims all the territory from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River as Palestinian territory and he published a fatwa in 2000 insisting on the right of return and prohibiting compensation in its place. Jews who came to Israel from around the world will be forced to leave, he told the German newspaper, Die Welt.
Hannah has also maintained that Jerusalem is an Arab city.
In July 2002, he was fired from his post as spokesperson by the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem for “supporting the Palestinian terrorism” and for refusing to sign a document condemning Palestinian operations. The Patriarch was later removed from his post following charges of selling land belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church to Zionist settlers
Palestine House did not respond to a CJN request for a comment, but its spokesperson, Samir Jabbour, told the National Post that Hannah is a peace activist and believes Jerusalem belongs to the three monotheistic faiths.
Benlolo criticized Palestine House for bringing speakers whose views are far from the Canadian mainstream values of “tolerance, human rights, dialogue and building bridges.”
“By bringing people who foment hate and violence… this should raise the eyebrows of Canadians,” Benlolo said.
