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<h1><font size=4><b>Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: Palestinians should be
Annihilated</b></font></h1><font size=3>02. Sep, 2010<br>
<a href="http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2010/09/rabbi-ovadia-yosef-palestinians-should-be-annihilated/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2010/09/rabbi-ovadia-yosef-palestinians-should-be-annihilated/<br>
<br>
</a><b>By Khalid Amayreh<br><br>
<br>
Who says there is no Jewish Nazism?<br><br>
</b>Ovadia Yosef is the spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of
haredi orthodox Jews who give him automatic and nearly absolute
allegiance. This week, he lashed out at the Palestinians, saying that
they should all be annihilated. “May God destroy them with a plague,”
said the elderly rabbi.<br><br>
Yosef’s remarks should be taken seriously as they seem to reflect a
deepening grave phenomenon in the Israeli Jewish society. It is Jewish
fascism, pure and simple. It is racist, virulent and
violent.<br><br>
Unfortunately, with the exception of a few sporadic voices, which
criticized the rabbi for saying what he said, the Israeli society
generally ignored the manifestly racist remarks, either out of apathy, or
because they concurred with him.<br><br>
Even Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu refused to directly and
explicitly denounce the racist tirade, even though it was politically
correct to do so in a certain sense. Instead he babbled a few
words, saying that what Yosef said didn’t represent the policy of the
Israeli government. Shas, the political party whose ultimate political
maker is Yosef, is an important coalition partner in the Netanyahu
coalition.<br><br>
Interestingly, Yosef was not talking merely about Arab extremists, or
terrorists, or other “demonized groups.” He was rather talking about “all
Palestinians” who he said should perish.<br><br>
Yosef is considered a Torah sage. Hence, it is unlikely that he was
mincing words or making a slip of a tongue as some hasbara propagandists
would claim to limit the damage generated by the racist
utterance.<br><br>
I strongly believe the world, especially Jews, ought to treat such calls,
which haven’t been made for the first time, with utmost seriousness and
gravity, because wishing Palestinians “a speedy annihilation” is
effectively a call for genocide.<br><br>
Jews can’t keep talking about the holocaust while fascism is taking root
in their midst. They should realize, in case they don’t that Nazism was
sinful and evil, not because it was partly directed against Jews, but
rather because it was inherently diabolical and nefarious.<br><br>
In the final analysis, Jewish fascism is no less evil than German fascism
or any other fascism. There is no such a thing as a kosher genocide or a
kosher holocaust, the kind of which this ignorant, hateful old man, who
calls himself a Torah sage, is calling for. Didn’t he learn when he was
young the cardinal Biblical commandment, thou shall not murder?<br><br>
Yosef is by no means thunder on a clear day. He represents a widespread
phenomenon in Israel and amongst Jews who increasingly harbor genocidal
views toward the Palestinian people. This genocidal ideology, dubbed by
much of the international media as merely “Jewish extremism,” can be
called Jewish Nazism, at least from the perspective of ideology.<br><br>
Several months ago, another rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu, who died recently,
was quoted by his own son as saying that hundreds of thousands, even
millions, of Palestinian civilians ought to be killed if largely
innocuous projectiles from Gaza didn’t cease.<br><br>
Other religious figures, who routinely invoke the issue of terror,
readily quote from the Old Testament, justifying war crimes and crimes
against humanity perpetrated callously by the Israeli occupation army
against innocent civilians in occupied Palestine and Lebanon .<br><br>
One religious Zionist leader, a lady, didn’t hesitate to call on the
Israeli government and army to adopt Biblical-style genocide in dealing
with the Palestinian issue. Needless to say, a Biblical-style solution
means annihilating men, women, and children and not leaving a breathing
thing.<br><br>
It is highly hypocritical and morally duplicitous for Israel and
its supporters to urge Muslims to rein in their extremists while
giving a near carte blanche to the likes of Ovadia Yosef to spew their
hateful venom.<br><br>
When an Israeli soldier hears Yosef spew this Nazi-like
venom, it is predictable how this soldier will internalize what he
heard, especially in dealing with Palestinians.<br><br>
Then the innocent blood shed will not be the sole responsibility of the
young brainwashed soldier, but also the responsibility of the rabbis who
keep fostering hate and racism among their followers.<br><br>
When an Israeli murderer, a French Jewish immigrant, was asked by
police a few years ago why he murdered an Arab taxi driver who had
given him a ride to his home, the murderer said he thought non-Jewish
lives were worthless and had no sanctity. He apparently had learned this
during a homily at his neighborhood’s synagogue.<br><br>
Yes, there are extremists everywhere. But in Israel, extremism is the
mainstream, as successive elections have repeatedly shown. Today, in
Israel humanists, human rights activists, academics who oppose racism and
equality advocates are hounded and demonized. The gangs of fascism, who
function under a variety of rubrics, don’t sleep the night trying to
vilify university professors and others who dare call the spade a spade.
In short, terror and McCarthyism are in the air every where in a state
that mendaciously calls itself “democratic.”<br><br>
True, Muslims have extremist organizations such as al-Qaeda and other
organizations which commit acts of mostly politically-motivated
violence and terror. However, while the bulk of Muslims are decidedly
against these groups, it is sad that we find most Jews are decidedly and
enthusiastically supportive of Jewish racist and terror groups,
especially the settler movement whose venomous ideology advocates
genocide as the ultimate solution for the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict.<br><br>
Ovadia Yosef will get away with impunity as he did numerous times before.
In the final analysis, Yosef is the product of Israeli fascism which he
epitomizes.<br><br>
However, Israel should also look back at similar experiences where
fascism took its course and reached its evil potentials. We all know the
rest of the story.<br><br>
<br>
<b>Khalid Amayreh</b> is a Journalist living in Dura, Hebron District,
West Bank, occupied Palestine . He has BA in journalism: University
of Oklahoma , 1981 MA in journalism, University of Southern
Illinois , 1983 <br><br>
<br><br>
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