Saajid Badat's video and the IHRC

The Islamic Human Rights Commission is an Islamist advocacy group that organises London's al-Quds Rally, an annual event inaugurated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini for his followers around the world to call for Israel to be destroyed.

You can get a sense of what the IHRC wants people to think of Israel and Jews by the content of one of the DVDs for sale on its website, a 1998 film called Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven.

This film has a terrorist association of which the IHRC may not be aware, or that they may not want you to know about.

In April 2005 Saajid Badat, from Gloucester, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for plotting to blow up a transatlantic aircraft with a bomb secreted in his shoe. Unlike his colleague Richard Reid, Badat did not go through with the plan and cooperated with police after his arrest. He continued to cooperate with the authorities after his imprisonment and consequently had his sentence cut further. He was released from prison in 2010.

In 2012 Badat gave evidence in a US-based terrorist trial during which he revealed that he had been instructed by a senior al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan to collect intelligence about potential Jewish targets in South Africa for al-Qaeda to attack.

When Badat was arrested he directed the police to two suitcases in his possession that contained the explosive material he had been given, but had never used, for his aborted plot. Alongside this material, in the same suitcases as the explosives, the police found four propaganda videos relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

The first suitcase was found underneath a bed in the front room on the ground floor and it was x-rayed. In it was found a fuse attached to an improvised detonator and then the second suitcase was found on the first floor landing and in that the police found the high explosive and as Badat had described, it was in a black sock. Also with it was a length of detonating cord. In addition to those explosive items, in the black suitcase video tapes were found entitled: "The Return", a documentary about Palestinian refugees, another entitled "Blood in the Ibrahimi Mosque", a documentary about a 1994 massacre in that mosque, "Minarets in the Face of Destruction", a documentary about how the Israeli authorities have sold off Muslim places of worship, and "Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven", another documentary about a mosque and its three different faiths that were worshipped there.

Jerusalem: The Promise of Heaven can be watched in full below. It is particularly inflammatory and offensive. The narrator talks throughout of "Jews" rather than "Israelis" or "Zionists".

Over footage of Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the narrator says [16:19]:

What on earth are they doing? What on earth are they wailing? Do they have any sense of guilt for what they have done and what they are causing?

Of the closed Omari Mosque in Jerusalem, the narrator says [28:53]:

Not satisfied with sealing up the mosque, the Jews set up a synagogue adjacent to its walls. The call for prayer was silenced. It was replaced with satanic rustles and whispers.

This last reference to "satanic rustles and whispers" is set over footage of Orthodox Jews at prayer.

There is a recurring theme associating Jews with gold. At 28:06 the narrator says:

Today the Jews are still going ahead with the war of eviction. They are using the temptation of gold in order to take what they could not gain by force.

At 47:28 the narrator says:

The systematic policy of dispersion persists, in order to empty the holy city from its people and to offer it on a golden platter to the Jews imported from abroad.

The film interviews officials from the al-Aqsa Mosque who are united in their rejection of any Jewish connection to Jerusalem and their denial of Jewish history. Akef Ishtayya, an assistant at the Islamic Museum in Al-Aqsa, says [11:44]:

Al-Aqsa is in need of clean and honourable hands, not polluted, profane hands which are stained with blood. The faith of the prophet Moses called for monotheism and taught the ethical commandments and values. But these people have no values or ethics. Where did they come from? The Pole tells you he has come to the land of his ancestors. It could not be true that the one who has come from Russia, Poland or Ethiopia has an ancestor who lived here once.

Najeh Bkeirat, Chairman of the Islamic Heritage Committee at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, says about the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives [20:22]:

Most of their graves are false. The Jews in this place, or in America or in Europe, pay thousands of dollars to have the names of their false ancestors written on these graves.

Mohammed Abu Sneineh, a guard at Al-Aqsa, says [17:53]:

They say they are the descendants of Abraham, but Abraham was no Jew or Christian, he was a Muslim.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, currently banned from entering the United Kingdom because of his support for Palestinian suicide bombing and his antisemitic statements, is also interviewed in the film. At 25:12 he delivers a typical dose of his theological anti-Judaism:

Ruthlessness, violence and immoral practices - the Quran says about them, because they say there is no callness (sic) to keep faith with the gentiles, they consider it lawful to do whatever they like with the blood of nations, and the wealth of nations, and the sanctity of nations, therefore they cannot be trusted to fulfil a commitment or an obligation.

Towards the end of the film, Qaradawi is shown making a rousing call to arms:

If a certain generation of people choose to forsake their right they will have to bear the guilt. The Muslim Ummah would never consent to such an evil thing and will defend the land of Isra and Miraj, the first Qibla, the land of steadfastness and Jihad. The Muslims will defend the third holiest city in Islam by all means and will not spare a drop of blood.

Why is the IHRC selling this film, a copy of which was found in the possession of an al-Qaeda terrorist who had been instructed to prepare terrorist attacks against Jews; a film that speaks of Jews as satanic, ruthless, immoral people who cannot be trusted; that claims Jews use gold to achieve their sinister aims and demands that Muslims defend Jerusalem to the last "drop of blood"?

According to the IHRC website, all profits from sales via their online shop go to their associated charity, the Islamic Human Rights Commission Trust. The stated objectives of this charity include "cultivating a sentiment...in favour of good race relations." If the IHRC are serious about this objective, they could make a start by withdrawing this foul film from sale.