A senior Palestinian Authority official has accused Americans, and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman in particular, of being motivated by a “Satanic urge” after the US envoy described Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria as an “alleged occupation.”
Mahmoud Al-Habbash, an advisor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Supreme Shari’ah judge, made the remark in a Friday sermon in response to an interview Friedman gave to the Jerusalem Post.
“I think the American Jewish community tends to look at Israel somewhat myopically,” Friedman told the Post, explaining that the right tends to see peace as impossible and the left believes that Israel can only become a better society if the “alleged occupation” ends.
Friedman’s statement raised the PA’s ire, with officials in Ramallah describing it as a "gross violation of international law.”
Speaking on Friday during a sermon broadcast on PA TV, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, an advisor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Supreme Shari’ah judge, asked "What idiocy is this? What satanic urge motivates these people? These are people who have lost all morals, who watch the oppressed and support the oppressors and stand by their side.”
Al-Habbas’ latest statement was in line with his prior rhetoric. During a 2015 talk on PA TV, he stated that the conflict was "a further manifestation of the historic conflict between truth and falsehood, between good and evil” and that “the evil is represented by the devils and their supporters, by the satans and their supporters.”
