For example, in a weekly sermon in April 2002, Al-Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the highest-ranking cleric in the Sunni Muslim world, called the Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs."[1]
In one of his sermons, Saudi sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Al-Haraam mosque – the most important mosque in Mecca – beseeched Allah to annihilate the Jews. He also urged the Arabs to give up peace initiatives with them because they are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs."[2]
"Read history," called Al-Sudayyis in another sermon, "and you will understand that the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels, distorters of [others'] words, calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers... the scum of the human race 'whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs...' These are the Jews, an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption..."[3]
In a sermon at the Said Al-Jandoul mosque in Al-Taif, Saudi sheikh Ba'd bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi explained that "the qualities of the Jews" were present at all times and in all places: "The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places... is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam – which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam."[4]
In an August 2001 sermon, Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, Palestinian Authority official and imam of the Sheikh Ijlin mosque, Gaza City's main mosque, called on the Palestinian people to forget their internal disagreements and turn all weapons against Jews: "lances must be directed at the Jews, the enemies of Allah, the nation accursed in Allah's book. Allah described [them] as apes and pigs, calf-worshipers, idol-worshippers..."[5]
Seeing Jews as "descendants of apes and pigs" is common also in Shi'ite Islam. Such statements appear, for instance, in a 1998 speech by Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on the occasion of the Shi'ite 'Ashoura holiday. Nasrallah regretted that the holiday fell "on the 50th anniversary of the bitter and distressing historical catastrophe of the establishment of the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the Zionist Jews – on the land of Palestine and Jerusalem." He closed his speech with these words: "... We reaffirm the slogan of the struggle against the Great Satan and call, like last year: 'Death to America. To the murderers of the prophets, the grandsons of apes and pigs,' we say: ... 'Death to Israel...'"[6]
These statements are made not only by clerics and preachers. Following their lead, public opinion leaders in the Arab world also call the Jews "the descendants of apes and pigs." The image has pervaded the public consciousness, even in child-rearing. In May 2002, Iqraa, the Saudi-Egyptian satellite television station, which according to its website[7] sets for itself the goals of "highlighting aspects of Arab Islamic culture that inspire respect," "highlighting the true and tolerant picture of Islam and refuting the accusations directed against Islam," and "planting a spirit of mutual understanding and dialogue among members of the nation and opening channels of cultural connection with the cultures of other nations," interviewed a three-and-a-half-year-old "real Muslim girl" about Jews. On "The Muslim Woman Magazine" program, the girl was asked whether she liked Jews; she answered, "no." When asked why she didn't like them, she said that Jews were "apes and pigs." "Who said this?" the moderator asked. The girl answered, "Our God." "Where did He say this?" "In the Koran." At the end of the interview, the pleased moderator said: "No [parents] could wish for Allah to give them a more believing girl than she... May Allah bless her, her father and mother. The next generation of children must be true Muslims. We must educate them now while they are children, so that they will be true Muslims."[8]
In April 2002, a weekly talk show on the Al-Jazeera satellite television station, "The Opposite Direction" which claims to have tens of millions of viewers across the world, addressed the question "Is Zionism worse than Nazism?" The moderator, Dr. Faisal Al-Qassam, included in the discussion the opinion of a viewer who wrote in from the station's website: "The sons of Zion, whom our God described as the sons of apes and pigs, will not be deterred unless there is a real holocaust, that will destroy all of them at once, together with the traitors – those who collaborate with them, the scum of this [Islamic] nation."[9]