Kamal Al-Khatib, deputy head of the radical Islamic Movement in Israel headed by Raed Salah, said in a recent speech that Gaza “will rub Israel’s nose in the mud.”
The comments were made in a speech in Kafr Kanna, an Arab town located in the Galilee. The speech was broadcast on the Lebanese-based Al-Quds TV and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
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“Gaza, which vanquished the Tatars and the Mongols in July 1260, is the same Gaza that is vanquishing the Israelis in July 2014. The Israelis are the new Tatars,” he declared.
“The Palestinian David of our times is terrifying you, oh Israelites. The Gazan David of our times, who challenges you, is not a secularist, a socialist, a leftist, or a capitalist. The David of our times is an Islamist, whose motto is: ‘Allah is our goal, the Prophet Muhammad is our role model, the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our path, and death for the sake of Allah is our loftiest aspiration,’” he added.
“Oh Israelites, the David of Gaza is telling you today that the notion of turning the other cheek is a thing of the past. The David of Gaza tells you that we shall break the hand that aims to harm us. The David of Gaza tells you that he will repay you in spades, and will rub your nose in the mud,” said Al-Khatib.
Throughout the speech, the crowd responds with chants of “Allahu Akbar”.
In April, Al-Khatib claimed that Israel is “land that has been occupied since 1948.”
Speaking to the Hamas journal Falastin, Al-Khatib said that Israel is taking advantage of the troubles in surrounding Arab countries to “Judaize” Jerusalem.
He accused Israel of acting towards a gradual implementation of sovereignty over Jerusalem, including shared the use of the Temple Mount among Jews and Muslims.
In light of this “threat” against Jerusalem, he stressed that “the protection of the Al-Aqsa mosque is not solely a task for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, residents who have been occupied since 1948 (referring to the State of Israel) and the Palestinian people themselves. It is the task of the entire Muslim and Arab world.”
Several months earlier, the same Al-Khatib warned of a possible internal conflict with “the Israeli occupation” and threatened a “huge eruption” if Israel intervened on the Temple Mount and continued, according to him, to bother the Muslims praying there.