A former Jordanian MP accused Jews of using the blood of Christian children to make matzah.

Sheikh Abd Al-Mun’im Abu Zant revived the blood libel in an interview with al-Aqsa TV earlier this month, which was translated and posted online Wednesday by MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute).

The myth dates back to the Middle Ages in Europe, and was often used as a pretext to commit atrocities against Jewish communities.

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“On their religious holidays, if they cannot find a Muslim to slaughter, and use drops of his blood to knead the matzos they eat, they slaughter a Christian in order to take drops of his blood, and mix it into the matzos that they eat on that holiday,” Abu Zant said.

Al-Aqsa TV is Hamas’s official TV station, broadcast from the Gaza Strip.

The sheikh also alleged that Jews are “liars” who engage in other forms of cannibalism: “We have to understand the true nature of the Jews, because the entire world is deceived and tormented by them. The Holy Koran has revealed their true nature… One could go on forever about the deceptiveness of the Jews… They allow cannibalism, and the eating of human flesh.”

This is not the first time that the former Jordanian MP has stirred up controversy; in an interview with al-Aqsa TV in June 2012, the sheik declared that the Christian world’s responsibility to “liberate” Bethlehem had been forgotten because of “alcohol, syphilis, gonorrhea and AIDS.”