Muslim official says Israel won't exist

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CAIRO, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- A senior Muslim Brotherhood official and adviser to President Mohamed Morsi warned Israel will cease to exist in a decade.

"Jewish occupiers in the territory of historic Palestine are an obstacle to the Palestinians' right of return. Anyone who can read the future can see that this project has a decade, less than a decade to go, and it is our faith that the people of Palestine can then return to Palestine," the pan-Arab network al-Arabiya quoted Essam el-Eria,n the deputy head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, as saying Tuesday.

Last week Erian called on Jews to return to Egypt, saying, in an interview with the local Dream TV network: "It is better for Jews to live in a country like Egypt rather than in a country contaminated by occupation.

"Every Egyptian has the right to come back to Egypt no matter what his religion. Egyptian Jews should refuse to live under a brutal, bloody and racist occupation stained with war crimes against humanity."

At the time, Mohamed Younis, former dean of the Helwan University law faculty, warned that calling on Jews to return to Egypt could force the country to pay huge sums of money as reparations, Haaretz said.

During the 1948 War of Independence, many Egyptian Jews left the country with a majority of the remaining then departing during the 1967 Six Days War. The number of Jews currently living in Egypt is thought to be less than 100.