During a December 28, 2014 Hamas TV show, Palestinian imam Sheik Iyad Abu Funun said: "If the Jews had been a respectable, well-bred people,... [Hitler] would not have done those things to them. ... Corruption is deeply rooted in that nation." Abu Funun, who in the past was sentenced to 29 years in an Israeli prison, was released in the 2011 Shalit prisoner swap. He was later rearrested after resuming his militant activity and expelled from Bethlehem to Gaza for ten years. Abu Funun delivers sermons in a Gaza mosque and recently began to moderate a show on the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV channel, where he made the current statements.

Following are excerpts:

Iyad Abu Funun: The Europeans realized that if the Jews were to remain in Europe, it would lead to utter corruption, and so they wanted to get rid of them. The Jews are, by nature, a corrupt people, who sow corruption everywhere. Whichever land they came upon, they did their worst.

A logical question arises: Why did Hitler annihilate a number of Jews? The figure is still in dispute. Why did he do this? This is a major question. If the Jews had been a respectable, well-bred people, who treated others with respect, he would not have done those things to them.

Even in the days of the Prophet Muhammad – why did the Prophet Muhammad banish them? Because they initiated the aggression. The Jews of the Banu Qaynuqa tribe violated the honor of a Muslim woman, and killed a Muslim man. The Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe committed acts of treachery. The Jews of the Banu Nazir tribe tried to assassinate the Prophet Muhammad. So we see that corruption is deeply rooted in that nation. That is why Europe wanted to get rid of them.

Europe and the Zionists could not take this land as long as the state of Islam existed. One of the most significant things I recall is that the Europeans offered the Zionists several places in the world – in Central Africa, Uganda, Niger, Brazil, Argentina, and elsewhere. They gave them a choice, and the Zionists said: "We want the Promised Land, Palestine."

Therefore, when the Austrian journalist Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, went to see Sultan Abdul Hamid, whom we are discussing today, he went in the capacity of a journalist. Imagine – when he conducted the interview with Sultan Abdul Hamid, He said to him: "How about you giving us Palestine, and we will pay all the debts of the Islamic State?" So this was no simple conspiracy. It was a conspiracy hatched by superpowers, and by the international community, as it is now known, against the Islamic state.

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