NEW YORK – Reviving a medieval blood libel that led directly to massacres of Jews, a Saudi Arabian government newspaper has published an article claiming that Jews murder non-Jews in order to use their blood in the baking of pastries for the Purim holiday.
The two-part article about “the Jewish vampires,” which appeared in the Saudi daily Al Riyadh on March 10 and 12, 2002, was authored by Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma, a “scholar” at King Faisal University in the Saudi city of Al-Dammam. It asserted:
“The Jews’ spilling human blood to prepare pastry for their holidays is a well-established fact, historically and legally, all throughout history. This was one of the main reasons for the persecution and exile that were their lot in Europe and Asia at various times … For this holiday, the victim must be a mature adolescent who is, of course, a non-Jew—that is, a Christian or a Muslim. His blood is taken and dried into granules. The cleric blends these granules into the pastry dough; they can also be saved for the next holiday. In contrast, for the Passover slaughtering, about which I intend to write one of these days, the blood of Christian and Muslim children under the age of 10 must be used, and the cleric can mix the blood [into the dough] before or after dehydration.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI.)
Morton A. Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America said: “Saudi Arabia’s revival of the anti- Jewish blood libel proves that the so-called ‘Saudi peace plan’ is a hoax. If the Saudis were genuinely interested in living in peace with the Jewish State, they would not be inciting the Arab masses to hate and murder Jews.”
Additional recent examples of Saudi Arabian government-sponsored hatred of Jews and the Jewish State:
* “The Jews are trying to take over the world”: A two-part article in the Saudi Arabian government daily newspaper Al Watan on December 8 and 9, 2001, declared: “At the end of the last century, the Jewish organizations consolidated a hellish plan to take over the world by sparking revolutions or taking control of the keys to governments in various countries, first and foremost the U.S. and Russia … The Jews act by means of their control of the media, politics, and the economy in order to weaken the non-Jewish groups and bring about their disintegration … The arrogance and tyranny of the Jews, who manage to hide it from the Western public, has reached such proportions that anyone who talks about them, their hegemony, and their racism knows that he will pay a high price.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI.)
* “The Zionist entity is evil and must be hated”: An article in the Saudi Arabian government daily newspaper Al Riyadh on November 22, 2001, asserted: “One cannot be amazed by the hatred of most of the nations of the world for the Zionist entity, because of its history, replete not with human achievements but with barbaric massacres, deceit, and evil conscience…These are our enemies, and our hatred towards them is rooted in our souls, and the only thing that can remove it is their departure from our lands and the purification of their defilement of our holy places!!!” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI.)
* Thomas Friedman Says Saudis Teach Hate: Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who has written sympathetically of Saudi Arabia, has acknowledged that Saudi government-run schools teach children with textbooks that state, for example, “It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy.” Friedman’s comment: “This hostile view of non-Muslims, which is particularly pronounced in the strict Saudi Wahhabi brand of Islam, is reinforced through Saudi sermons, TV shows, and the Internet.” (New York Times, October 30, 2001)