Video: Wolf Blitzer grills Hamas' Osama Hamdan over blood libels

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan has been making infrequent appearances on CNN in the past few weeks, but today Wolf Blitzer really held his feet to the fire. At issue here was what Blitzer called “disturbing” comments Hamdan made on television saying that Jews use Christian blood to make matzoh, a charge generally referred to as blood libel. Hamdan had said, “We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood in their holy matzoh. This is not a figment of the imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact acknowledged by their own books and historical evidence.”

Blitzer confronted Hamdan over that remark today. Hamdan, repeatedly, refused to directly answer Blitzer’s question. Instead, he argued that the truly disgusting rhetoric is coming from the Israelis. Hamdan told Blitzer, “They are misusing the words. I’ve said on the same occasion that we don’t have problems with the Jews… I have Jewish friends who are supporting the Palestinian rights.”

At no point did Hamdan address those controversial remarks themselves. But what Blitzer noticed is that not once did Hamdan issue any kind of denial for uttering such “an awful, awful smear.”

Let's go to the videotape.



Kind of tough when your Arabic gets translated into English, isn't it?