New York — Last week Sheikh Muhammad Ali, deputy director of the Palestinian Clerics Association, said in an interview on Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV that “we will enter Palestine as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through Jihad and the Muslim would kill the Jews…we will wipe out the Zionist enemy.” (Translation courtesy of MEMRI)

The following are excerpts from Sheikh Muhammad Ali’s TV interview: “Any land, any piece of land, over which flies the banner of ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger,” and which at a certain point belonged to the Muslims…plundering and occupying such land (by non-Muslims) is forbidden, and it is the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate this land, wherever it may be. …many precious Muslim lands are under occupation today….Andalusia (Spain) is one example….

“When a piece of Muslim land is occupied, the duty of liberating it falls, first of all, upon the local residents. But when they are too few, or they cannot — it is the duty of the next in line to liberate this land.

“…But if they are unable to do it either, it becomes the duty of all Muslims to do what they can to liberate it. According to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, not only when an entire homeland is occupied, but when ‘even an inch of Muslim land is occupied, Jihad is a personal duty, a religious obligation incumbent upon everyone….’They must liberate this land — and this is when only an inch is occupied, let alone when it is Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa that are occupied.

…”The Prophet Muhammad foretold in a hadith that ‘Judgment Day would come only when the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims would kill the Jews…

…”Allah willing, we will enter [Palestine] as conquerors and liberators, not through negotiations, but through Jihad and resistance, because the Hadith goes: ‘And the Muslims would kill the Jews’ — there is killing involved…

“The Jews acknowledge (that it is only a matter of time that the Muslims will eventually liberate Jerusalem and regain Palestine). They acknowledge this because they find it in their forged torah, in their Talmud.

“Since they believe that the Zionist entity will disappear…They are only trying to stall. They are not trying to establish themselves but to delay the fulfillment of the divine prophecy of the liberation of all of Palestine and the wiping out of the Zionist entity. If the Jews and the Zionist were to leave Palestine now, the war would be over, and the Middle East and the entire world could sigh in relief. But the Jews, these Zionists, are against humanity, not just against Muslims.”

ZOA President Morton A. Klein said, “The chilling statements by Sheikh Ali give further credence to the argument that the Arab war against Israel is a religious war that will not be resolved by giving away parts of the lands of Israel or by forcibly removing Jews in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and even Jerusalem from their homes. Ali makes it clear that they will not accept a non-Muslim entity on any part of Israel. Concessions of land, communities, homes, refugees, Jerusalem and even the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state will only whet the appetite of the Palestinian Arabs.

“The Israeli issue for the Muslims is only one part of their war. Many other Muslim clerics have stated that if Bush and the US converts to Islam, all terrorism against the US would stop.

“This is a venal ideology. There must be no more concessions to the Palestinian Arabs. If they don’t stop terrorism, their agenda must go backwards — not forwards. The US and Israel should end all financial aid and stop negotiations until the terrorists are disarmed and arrested and until this sort of dangerous incitement ends. Sheikhs who perpetrate verbal terrorism should be condemned and removed from their posts.”