WATCH: CNN's Wolf Blitzer challenges Hamas spokesman on blood libel comments
During interview on news network, Blitzer repeatedly confronts Osama Hamdan on his claims that Jews killed Christians to use their blood in matzos.
By JPOST.COM STAFFWolf Blitzer (photo credit: REUTERS)
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer confronted a Hamas spokesman on Monday, demanding that he address previous claims he made that Jews killed Christians to use their blood in the baking of matzot.Osama Hamdan appeared on Blitzer’s Situation Room on the cable network on Monday, stating the organization’s positions in regard to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.Several minutes into the interview, Blitzer asked Hamdan to explain some “very disturbing” comments he had made recently to the Al-Quds television station.Blitzer read out the comments, translated into English by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, which he said had been verified as accurate by CNN: “We all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians in order to mix their blood with their holy matzot. 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 then asked Hamdan, “You believe that Jews would kill Christians to mix their blood to bake the holy matzot on Passover? Is that your belief Mr. Hamdan?” Hamdan said that his comments had come in response to a plan by Deputy Knesset Speaker Moshe Feiglin (Likud) for the “complete destruction of Gaza.”Hamdan claimed that his comments had been misconstrued and that he had also said on the same occasion that Hamas “doesn’t have a problem with the Jews, as Palestinians and Muslims.”Blitzer insisted that Hamdan answer the question, replaying the clip from Al-Quds television.Hamdan claimed MEMRI had edited the tape to cover the “genocide” being carried out by Israel in Gaza.“We’re going to leave it there, but I was hoping to get a flat denial from you that you would utter such ridiculous words,” Blitzer said.
