Saturday, December 19, 2009

Shas party spiritual leader on Muslims: “Their religion is as ugly as they are.”

by Yaniv Reich

December 14, 2009

An outrageously large number of Israeli politicians express violently racist sentiments in public. What must they say in private?

Today’s case study in Israeli racism toward Arabs/Palestinians/Persians/Muslims (aren’t they all the same anyway?) comes from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who is the spiritual leader of Shas, a right-wing, religious party in Israeli with 11 Knesset seats (out of 120). It is the fifth largest political block at the moment and sits in PM Netanyahu’s coalition government. Its party members currently hold four cabinet posts, including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. In other words, Shas is not some fringe group of outpost settlers (although settlers are, of course, duly supported by them), but rather an integral part of Israeli government and society.

This is what their spiritual leader had to say about Muslims:

"They’re stupid. Their religion is as ugly as they are."

(Thanks to Coteret for initially posting this article.)

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