A high school teacher in Belgium shared a video on Facebook of an imam calling for a jihad against Jews and people who “conspire” with them, JTA reported on Friday.
Talal Magri, a professor of Islam at the Royal Agri Saint-Georges Athenaeum, 35 miles southeast of Brussels, posted in October a clip of an unidentified man saying in Arabic, “Those who cooperate, work, conspire with the Jews, Allah, take them without delay. Shake their bases and topple their buildings, Allah. Support the jihad fighters, whom some of us find excuses not to join.”
Joel Rubinfeld, president of the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, called Magri one of many “preachers spreading poison and turning students into time bombs” and Education Ministry officials in Wallonia, the Belgian state that employs Magri, told the publication La Dernière Heure that it filed a hate speech complaint with police.
Magri led the 2018 elections campaign of Belgium’s Islam Party, which supports the promotion of Sharia law, and headed its regional list for the city of Liege, according to La Dernière Heure. He denied that the sermon mentioned Jews or jihad and added that it could not be anti-Semitic “because I am an Arab and Arabs are Semites, too.”
Khalil Zeguendi, editor of the Le Maroxellois magazine who knows Arabic as his first language, confirmed to La Dernière Heure that its translation of the video is correct.
Royal Agri Saint-Georges Athenaeum declined to comment on whether Magri will continue to teach at its school.
