JERUSALEM, April 9 (News Agencies) - The outspoken spiritual leader of Israel's powerful ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party whipped up a new storm on Monday over a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs.
"It is forbidden to be merciful to them, you must give them missiles, with relish - annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones," Rabbi Ovadia Yosef was quoted as saying in a sermon ahead of the Jewish Passover holiday.
"May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arabs' heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them, and cause them to be vanquished and cause them to be cast from the world," he said.
Yosef, who is one of the most powerful figures in Israel as a former chief rabbi and founder of Shas, the third largest party in parliament which represents the nation's Sephardic Jews, has made similarly vitriolic remarks in the past, several times calling Arabs "vipers."
Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit condemned his latest tirade.
"A person of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's stature must refrain from acrid remarks such as these ... I suggest that we not learn from the ways of the Palestinians and speak in verbal blows like these," he told Israeli radio.
Salah Tarif, the only Arab cabinet minister in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's month-old government, also lashed out at Yosef, saying "his remarks add nothing but hatred."
Shas spokesman Yitzhak Sudri defended Yosef, saying his remarks referred only to "Arab murderers and terrorists," not the Arab public as a whole.
