JERUSALEM, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Days before Israel and the Palestinians meet to discuss peace, the spiritual leader of the Shas religious party called the Palestinian president "evil."
In his weekly sermon Saturday night, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef described Mahmoud Abbas as "an evil hater of Israel," Army Radio reported.
"Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and all those evil men may they perish from this world….God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians," he said.
Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib called on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and leader of the Shas Party, Minister of Interior Eli Yishai, to condemn the religious leader's remarks.
"The way to peace is to end incitement and the culture of hatred in Israel toward Palestinians. We demand that Israel take serious measures to end incitement," Khatib said in a statement published by the Maan news agency.
"These hateful remarks cannot be dismissed as politically insignificant, as they come from a religious leader whose words are intended to be taken seriously by members of a party which is part of Israel's governing coalition," he said. "Unless Israeli leaders say these words are immoral and indefensible, we have to conclude that they condone incitement to hatred."
