Poem on Palestinian Authority TV: ‘Why Did You Bring the Jews to Us, Who Defile Jerusalem?’

balfour declaration
HAZEM BADER/AFP/Getty

The Palestinian Authority’s television station aired a segment last week in which a girl recites an openly anti-Semitic poem, a nonprofit monitoring the Palestinian media reported.

The poem was presented as a response to the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and begin the process of relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In the poem, the girl asks: “Why did you bring the Jews to us, who defile Jerusalem and its great mosque?”

The poem is directed at former British foreign secretary Lord Balfour and asks him whether his “conscience is quiet” after what he “did to [the Palestinian] people.”

The poem reads:

[Former British Foreign Secretary] Balfour, you vile person, what did you do to our people?

Is your conscience quiet?

Go in your grave toward the blazing fire

You are the one that expelled us, do not ask for help

You drank our blood from a goblet, and brought this fate down upon us…

You brought to our people those who orphaned small children

You have turned the best of our people into Martyrs and prisoners

Why did you bring the Jews to us, who defile Jerusalem and its great mosque?

According to Palestinian Media Watch, the group has also documented similar hate speech by other Palestinian children, who are taught to despise Jews as the “most evil among creations.”

Several days before the poem was aired, PA TV broadcast a statement made by an Israeli-Arab man in Jerusalem expressing anti-Semitic views at a demonstration:

“[The Jews] are thieves. They are robbers, who were brought [here] from around the world – robbers. Little by little they entered the country until they brought all of the world’s stench here and established a government.”

Following U.S. President Trump’s decision, PA and Fatah officials compared Trump to Balfour, naming both “one who is not the owner” who “gave to one who has no right.”

The Balfour Declaration, issued on Nov. 2, 1917, was a letter sent by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild.

The missive stated, “His Majesty’s government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” In 1922, the League of Nations adopted this and made the British Mandate “responsible for putting into effect the declaration,” which led to the UN vote in 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israel.

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