Nizar Rayyan: Jews "Are A Cursed People"

Two years ago, Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Hamas military leader and Islamist theologian Nizar Rayyan, killed on Jan. 1 along with two of his four wives and some of their children, whom he kept close by in the apparent hope that they might be martyred with him. Goldberg:

I asked him if he believed, as some Hamas theologians do (and certainly as many Hezbollah leaders do) that Jews are the "sons of pigs and apes." He gave me an interesting answer that reflects a myopic reading of the Koran. "Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce. So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people."