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In the spring of 2019, video footage recorded at the Muslim American Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania engendered a degree of concern, particularly among right-leaning observers who claimed it showed young children singing songs whose lyrics contained violent imagery. The Daily Caller reported that the videos showed Philly Muslim children chanting about chopping off heads, the Behind the News web site claimed the footage showed the children 'calling for Jewish genocide, Glenn Beck's The Blaze web site reported that the children sang about beheading Jews, and Fox News wrote: Disturbing footage of Muslim kids saying they would sacrifice themselves and kill for the 'army of Allah' surfaced from an Islamic center in Philadelphia...In the video, translated by MEMRI [the Middle East Media Research Institute], kids can be heard singing: 'The land of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey is calling us. Our Palestine must return to us.' One girl talks about martyrs sacrificing their lives without hesitation to conquer Jerusalem. 'We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation,' a second girl says. 'We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture.' On 3 May, MEMRI posted portions of the edited video footage along with English subtitles. According to MEMRI, the footage was first published on the Facebook page of the Muslim American Society (MAS) in Philadelphia on 22 April, but that Facebook page was no longer available on 7 May, so we were unable to access the original video footage. However, in a press release on 3 May, MAS said the performance was the result of an oversight, and that it rejects a statement made in the video, though the press release did not specify which one: The Muslim American Society rejects a statement made at an event held in April at a local community center in Philadelphia. The center celebrated 'Ummah Day' where children sang songs from their cultural traditions. While we celebrate the coming together of different cultures and languages, not all songs were properly vetted. This was an unintended mistake and an oversight in which the center and the students are remorseful. MAS will conduct an internal investigation to ensure this does not occur again. The following day, MAS updated its statement to clarify that while the video was recorded at the organization's building in Philadelphia, the Islamic school responsible for the performance was a separate entity renting the space: We asked MAS several questions about the performance, including whether it regarded the English translation published by MEMRI as fair and accurate, but we did not receive a response to our questions in time for publication. The controversial video footage shows children singing a song and reading something akin to a speech. Snopes engaged a professional Arabic-to-English translator, whose own independent translation vindicated the subtitles published by MEMRI, which were as follows: Omar Suleiman, professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University, told Snopes that there was no justification for the lyrics of the song, or the content of the speech recited by the children in the footage published by MEMRI, and described the violent imagery as horrible. He explained that the song, entitled Thuwar (Rebels), has its origins in the Palestinian resistance movement and the First Intifada of the late 1980s. Suleiman emphasized that the performance should not be used to delegitimize [the Muslim American Society] and the work they have done. He added: I can say confidently that those song lyrics and the speech, in particular, don't represent the views of the broader Muslim community. Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, outreach and education director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Philadelphia, told Snopes that the violent imagery in the lyrics of the song was not appropriate in an American setting or any setting and had the potential to create cross-community discord. In the first week of May 2019, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that several local mosques had received threatening phone calls in response to the nationwide coverage of the controversial video footage, and Muslim community leaders had been advised to increase security measures at places of worship. Popular songs with violent lyrics can be found in many different cultures, especially among countries and peoples with a history of armed revolution, uprising and warfare. For example, the French national anthem La Marseillaise contains the following lyrics: These lyrics translate into English as: Several other national anthems contain violent imagery, either about patriotic self-sacrifice or the infliction of suffering upon enemies, as the Washington Post charted in 2016. The Italian national anthem, Il Canto degli Italiani (the Song of Italians) contains lines in which the symbolic eagle of the Austrian Empire has its heart burned by drinking the blood of Italy.
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