Blood Libel 2012: Syrian Opposition member says Jews want Syrian blood for making matzo

Syrian Opposition member Osama Al-Mallouhi blames Israel for helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad keep his stranglehold on power, despite more than a year of bloody protests and oppressive crackdowns. Why would Israel want to see the streets run with Syrian blood? Al-Mallouhi said:

Maybe (there is truth) to the story, attributed by historians to Jewish books, that says that on Passover, the Jews prefer the matzos that they eat to be mixed with the blood of non-Jews. There was in incident in Damascus in the 19th century, in which a non-Jew was killed, so that his blood could be taken and mixed in with these matzos and eaten. This is a Jewish tradition.

Actually, it’s not. The only tradition here is that the blood libel, used for centuries to incite violence against Jews, goes back a long way and continues today.

(Via the Middle East Media Research Institute, hat tip Dennis Wilen)