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Bounty Offered On Bigoted Israeli Rabbi
WASHINGTON, April 12 (IslamOnline) - A Jordanian businessman has announced that he will give one million Jordanian dinars ($1,406,501) for anyone who kills Israeli Shas party spiritual head Ovadia Yosef for recently making scathing anti-Arab statements.
Businessman Tawfiq Azab, in a letter sent to the local press said he would, "award a million dinars to any one who kills this extremist rabbi, leader of the extremist Israeli Shas movement."
Azab said that his decision for the award came after he heard about Yosef's remarks against Arabs.
Yosef was quoted by Maariv newspaper at a Passover sermon over the weekend saying, "It is forbidden to be merciful to them, you must give them missiles, with relish - annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones."
His comments revived memories of other recent descriptions of Arabs made by him as "snakes".
Azab described Yosef as a "cursed Satan."
Echoing these sentiments, a leading Lebanese Shiite Muslim cleric called Thursday for the "spilling the blood" of Yosef.
"The blood of this malignant Satan, this great terrorist ...should be spilled," said Sheikh Afif al-Nabulsi, head of the Shiite clerics in the southern region of Jabal Amel.
"The Palestinians and the Muslims should kill him in his bed. ... They should execute him by any means," he said in a statement.
There was widespread condemnation of Yosef within the Arab world.
The official Syrian newspaper ath-Thawra wrote in an editorial Wednesday, "This rabbi described the Arabs with words expressing Nazi and racist values, and feelings of blind hatred."
"Those statements reflect the policy of [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon who was elected to repress the [Palestinian] uprising by military force," the daily added.
The Syrian newspaper called on Arabs to "adopt a firm and decisive stance, mobilizing their capacity in a single front in order to force Israel to change its policy."
Yosef's ultra-orthodox Shas party, the third largest party in Israel's parliament and which holds the balance of power in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), however, said that the rabbi was referring only to "Arab murderers and terrorists".
Meir Sheetrit, a Cabinet minister from Sharon's Likud Party, while condemning Yosef's statement said, "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."
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