Israel rabbi calls for 'plague' on Mahmoud Abbas
30 August 2010 Last updated at 07:59
A senior rabbi from a party within Israel's coalition government has called for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to "vanish from our world". Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Shas, spoke out as Middle East talks are poised to begin in Washington. The United States condemned the remarks as "deeply offensive". Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself from the comments with a statement saying that his government wanted peace with the Palestinians.
The attack on Mr Abbas, delivered in the rabbi's weekly sermon, also prompted chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat to condemn the remarks as "an incitement to genocide". Mr Erakat urged the Israeli government "to do more about peace and stop spreading hatred", the AFP news agency reported.
'Regret and condemn'
Rabbi Yosef expressed the wish that "all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), vanish from our world". He went on to say: "May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel." The remarks come as Mr Netanyahu is due in Washington this week for direct peace talks with Mr Abbas.
US President Barack Obama hopes to bring the leaders together on Thursday for the first face-to-face discussions since December 2008, when the Palestinians broke off negotiations over Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip. The US response to Rabbi Yosef, a founder of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, was swift. In a statement, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said: "We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Mr Netanyahu's office issued a statement saying that Rabbi Yosef's comments "do not reflect the views of Benjamin Netanyahu or of his government". The 89-year-old former chief rabbi of Israel has been at the centre of controversy before, with comments about Arabs, secular Jews, liberals, women and gays. In 2001, during a Palestinian uprising, he called for the annihilation of Arabs and said it was forbidden to be merciful to them. He later said he was referring only to "terrorists" who attacked Israelis.
Settlement division
Meanwhile, Mr Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said on Sunday that Israel's policy of settlement-building could undermine the new round of peace talks. "Israel will be held accountable for the failure of the talks if settlement construction should continue," Mr Abbas said in a speech delivered in Jordan. "The negotiations need to bring about serious action that will be able to bring liberation from the occupation and independence."
Mr Abbas said Palestinians understood Israel's need for security, but said that need should not be an "excuse to expand settlements and steal land". In the statement responding to Rabbi Yosef's remarks, Mr Netanyahu's office said Israel intended to negotiate in good faith in Washington.
Analysts say expectations for the latest round of talks are low, with the settlement issue just one of a number of area of difference.
Rabbi calls for annihilation of Arabs
Tuesday, 10 April, 2001, 16:01 GMT 17:01 UK
The spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has provoked outrage with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs. "It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable," he was quoted as saying in a sermon delivered on Monday to mark the Jewish festival of Passover.
Rabbi Yosef is one of the most powerful religious figures in Israel, He is known for his outspoken comments and has in the past referred to the Arabs as "vipers". Through his influence over Shas, Israel's third largest political party, he is also a significant political figure. As founder and spiritual leader of the political party Shas, Rabbi Yosef is held in almost saintly regard by hundreds of thousands of Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin. The Palestinian Authority has condemned the sermon as racist and is calling on international organisations to treat the rabbi as a war criminal.
'Arab terrorists'
Rabbi Yosef said in his sermon that enemies have tried to hurt the Jewish people from the time of the exodus from Egypt to this day.
"The Lord shall return the Arabs' deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world," he said. Shas spokesman, Yitzhaq Suderi defended the rabbi, saying his remarks referred only to "Arab murderers and terrorists" and not the Arab people as a whole.
'Stirring up hatred'
Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfur urged international civil institutions and human rights organisations to consider Rabbi Yosef a war criminal in future. The utterances were "a clear call for murder and a political an intellectual terrorism that will lead to military terrorism", he said in remarks reported on Palestinian radio. He added that no punishment would come from Israel "because its political culture and action are in line with [the rabbi's] racist statements". Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit also condemned the sermon, saying: "A person of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's stature must refrain from acrid remarks such as these."
Salah Tarif, the only Arab cabinet minister in the Israeli government, also criticized Rabbi Yosef, saying "his remarks add nothing but hatred".
Erekat: Israeli religious figure urging genocide of Palestinians
Published 17:14 29.08.10 Latest update 17:14 29.08.10
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Sunday slammed remarks by the spiritual leader of Israel's leading ultra-Orthodox party, who said the Palestinians should "perish", saying that it was paramount to incitement to genocide. Erekat called on the Israeli government to denounce the remarks by Israel's former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and to take action against racist remarks by other elected officials. He also criticized Israel for allowing the incident to pass without condemnation.
Yosef had said during his weekly Shabbat sermon that the Palestinians, namely Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, should perish from the world. Yosef, a founder of the Shas Party, also described Palestinians as evil, bitter enemies of Israel.
The 89-year-old is a respected religious scholar but is also known for vitriolic comments about Arabs, secular Jews, liberals, women and gays, among others.
Erekat called on Israel "do more about peace and stop spreading hatred" and said Yosef's comments could be placed within the larger context of Israel's "policy against a Palestinian state" such as settlement expansion, home demolitions, among other things.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday distanced himself from Yosef's remarks, but stopped short of a condemnation. "Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's remarks do not reflect Netanyahu's views, nor do they reflect the stance of the Israeli government," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"Israel plans to take part in peace negotiations out of a desire to advance toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians that will end the conflict and ensure peace, security and good neighborly relations between the two peoples," the statement continued. Israeli Arab MK Jamal Zahalka, chair of the Balad Knesset faction, sent a letter to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, demanding that Yosef be investigated and tried for racist incitement and incitement to murder.
According to Zahalka, Yosef is not a minor public figure, but a spiritual leader whose religious edicts are adhered to by hundreds of thousands of followers, and his comments can be interpreted as permission to kill Palestinians. Zahalka added, "If, heaven forbid, a Muslim spiritual leader were to make anti-Jewish comments of this sort, he would be arrested immediately." MK Ahmed Tibi, chair of the United Arab List-Ta'al Knesset faction, also responded to Yosef's comments, saying that the rabbi "has long since turned into the biggest blasphemer, the evilest purveyor of hatred and killing, which are contrary to all religions."
MK Tibi called upon Yosef to reconsider his call for all evildoers to die, "because without realizing it, he is calling for his own death." In the past, Israel has accused the Palestinian government of incitement against the Jewish state, including by naming streets after Palestinian militants. The Palestinian Authority has dismissed such allegations, though U.S. President Barack Obama told Abbas earlier this year he needs to do more to halt incitement against Israel.
Links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11127409
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1270038.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-israeli-religious-figure-urging-genocide-of-palestinians-1.310876
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WlTXNlSF3s&feature=sub
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrOW4df3H68
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLVx_yZiEEo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpNiE4D1Bw
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