Former Egyptian Mufti claims Jews planted Gharqad trees in Red Sea resort (update)

Former Egyptian Mufti Ali Gomaa  invented a novel theory.

As most readers of the blog know, there is an Islamic hadith (that is enshrined in Hamas' charter) that says "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews."

Ali Gomaa said on TV that the Egyptian Red Sea town of Hurghada was named after the "gharqad" tree, which was planted by Israelis during their occupation of the Sinai, so they would be protected by that tree.



There are a couple of problems with his theory.

For one, Israel never controlled Hurghada, which is on the other side of the Red Sea past Sharm el-Sheikh.

For another, Hurghada has been around for about a hundred years and was named way before Israel was reborn.

The residents of Hurghada are angry at Gomaa's comments, saying that they defended their city from the Jews (which seems doubtful.)

The city actually was named for the tree, incidentally, which is reportedly common along the coast and were used by Red Sea fishermen as meeting places.

UPDATE: MEMRI translation of most of the video: