Jerusalem, Israel -- The Palestinian Authority has decided to impose restrictions on preachers who deliver Friday sermons in West Bank and Gaza Strip mosques, a senior PA security official told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.
Under the new restrictions, preachers would not be able to deliver sermons that have not been authorized by the PA, he said.
This will be the first time that since the establishment of the PA that preachers will be unable to deliver their own Friday sermons. The move is seen as an attempt by the PA leadership to stop incitement against Israel and the US in mosques.
"From now on, the preachers will be given speeches prepared in advance by the PA authorities," the official said. "Anyone who does not abide by the text will be fired."
The majority of the mosque preachers receive their salaries from the PA's Ministry of Islamic Wakf Affairs. However, some mosques in the Gaza Strip are controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, making it impossible for the PA to supervise the content of Friday sermons.
The PA's decision to impose censorship on preachers follows protests from Israeli and the US officials over a recent sermon in the Gaza Strip, in which the khatib, or preacher, called for the liberation of all of Palestine.
On February 4, Ibrahim Mudiris, a prominent PA preacher, said in a sermon broadcast live on the PA-owned television station and translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute: "We do not love any land more than the land of Palestine. Had the Jews not expelled us from it with their planes, their tanks, their weapons, their treachery around us, we would never leave you, O Palestine.
"We tell you, Palestine, we shall return to you, by Allah's will. We shall return to every village, every town and every grain of earth which was quenched by the blood of our grandparents and the sweat of our fathers and mothers. We shall return, we shall return. Our willingness to return to the 1967 borders does not mean that we have given up on the land of Palestine."