An American Muslim group posted a video on Facebook of children speaking in Arabic about chopping off heads and "eternal torture."
The video, posted by the Philadelphia chapter of the Muslim American Society, showed an April event in which children aged between 6 and 12 wore Palestinian scarves and sang the “Revolutionaries’ Anthem,” a song used by Islamist groups. Young girls in the video also read a poem about “liberating” Palestine.
Muslim American Society Executive Director Ayman Hammoussaid thatthat the "disturbing" video was not vetted before being posted. “It does not represent our understanding of Islam, nor the understanding of the mainstream Muslim community,” he insisted.
Inthe video, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the children sang about capturing the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and is located on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
"Glorious steeds call us and lead us [to] the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us ... Take us, oh ships ... until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones ... Flow, oh rivers of martyrs,” the kids can be heard singing.
There were also poems read containing violent language, with one girl saying, “we will defend [Palestine] with our bodies" — an apparent reference to suicide bombings.
“We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque,” one of the poems reads. “We will subject them to eternal torture.”
Hammous said that the person in charge of the program was dismissed and that he is evaluating the leadership of the Philadelphia chapter to see if others should be removed. He said that future events with the Philadelphia chapter will have strict oversight.