Tuesday
Aug312010
Israel: A Rabbi's War on Palestinians (Yenidunya)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:20 
Last week, the leader of Israel's Shas ultra-orthodox religious party reiterated his position that there should be no extension of moratorium on settlement construction when it ends on 26 September.Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's provocative words fell like a bombshell on Sunday. Army Radio reported that Yosef calling for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to "perish from this world". Yosef said Palestinians were "evil, bitter enemies of Israel":
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God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denounced Yosef's remarks and claimed these statements advocated genocide of Palestinians. Erekat criticised West Jerusalem's silence:
Is this how the Israeli government prepares its public for a peace agreement? It is an insult to all our efforts to advance the negotiations process.
On the same day, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley commented:
We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace.
As we move forward to relaunch peace negotiations, it is important that actions by people on all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it.
Reader Comments (5)
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wooo big deal, one rabbis says something and you all have a fit - it was all mistranslated anyway by the media and one rabbi doesnt speak for all people - how about showing the amount of times an Imam or Ahmadenijad himself said these kinds of things...
you people are pathetic!
The initial reports over the weekend claimed that former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef called for a genocide against all Palestinian Arabs, wishing the plague on Mahmoud Abbas and all other Palestinians.
The New York Times said
he described the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as “evil” and called on God to strike “these Ishmaelites and Palestinians with a plague; these evil haters of Israel.”
YNet originally reported and translated the sermon this way:
Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Saturday night wished death on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his people, who he called "evil enemies of Israel."
During his weekly lesson, held at the synagogue near his house in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har-Nof, the rabbi mentioned the blessing said at the Rosh Hashana feast that says, "May our enemies and adversaries be destroyed", and applied it to the current situation. "Abu Mazen (Abbas) and all those evil men – may they perish from this world. May God Almighty strike them and these Palestinians."
Today, however, YNet has changed the translation - after the entire world has already been convinced that Rabbi Yosef is a genocidal maniac.
Today's story says:
Ovadia, who heads the Shas religious party in Israel's ruling coalition, expressed hope in his weekly sermon Saturday that "all the evil people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), perish from our world."
"May God strike them down with the plague along with all the evil Palestinians who persecute Israel," he said.
This is much different from what was originally reported. This is not a call for genocide; it is a call for God to strike down Israel's enemies - a much different story and very much in line with daily prayers.
Is this another case of an overzealous media mistranslating (or, in the case of Israel's anti-religious media, misreporting) the words of the religious?
I cannot find the text of the sermon online, so I can't say for sure, but it sure looks like the media again placed their own preconceived notions of Jewish "extremism" ahead of an accurate story.
via elderofziyon.blogspot.com
RE how about showing the amount of times an Imam or Ahmadenijad himself said these kinds of things...
Actually, on EA you'll find if not daily, then multiple instances per week, that either blog entry writers of EA or readers report and comment on the crazy things said by the various mad mullahs (remember 'boob-quake'?) and the president, not to mention his advisers and Irans's vice-presidents and ministers. What I was trying to point out through humour in my post above is that the extremes in both Israel and Iran aren't much different from each other - sadly.
And as far as I have seen in the last 18 months, the EA contributor on Israel and Turkey, Ali Yenidunya, rarely reports on statements made by ultra-orthodox nutcase rabbis.
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