Posted on 08/29/2010 7:13:03 PM PDT by markomalley
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.Rabbi calls for Abbas to 'vanish'
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
He’s 89 years old, but it’s very newsworthy to the anti-Israel press.
All the threats, dehumanizing caricatures, and rockets the Muslims aim at Israel are not as newsworthy.
Clearly, the US State Department has not read the Psalms.
I can agree with the good Rabbi. Take Hamass and Hezballoney
with him when he goes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovadia_Yosef
This rabbi has a most liberal of all Orthodox Jewish belief systems. And, he has truly been around the block, born in Iraq.
Rav Yosef is a complex character. He founded the Shas party back in the 80s to combat discrimination against Sephardim. Unlike the Ashkenazim, there is no great divide between the ultra-Orthodox, the Orthodox, and the rest of us among the Sephardim. The party has been a going concern ever since. He helped get the Ethiopians out of there when it was under Communism and he gave Rabin the support he needed to open the Oslo talks despite the fact that his party was entirely against it. But when he gives a sermon he just lets it rip in the bluntest of manners. These current talks are a fraud orchestrated by Obama because the other side is not coming without preconditions and is just making a show until they can walk out blaming Israel. Yosef was just calling a spade a spade.
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