Voice
09-09-2005, 18:04
A prominent Israeli rabbi says Hurricane Katrina is God's punishment for US President George W Bush's role in forcing Israelis to leave the Gaza Strip.
"It was God's retribution. God does not shortchange anyone," Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel, said during his weekly sermon on Tuesday.
"He (Bush) perpetrated the expulsion (of Jews from Gaza). Now everyone is mad at him. This is his punishment for what he did to Gush Katif, and everyone else who did as he told them, their time will come, too," Yosef said.
Gush Katif is the name of what was the largest bloc of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Israel evacuated all 8,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza two weeks ago as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
Yosef is a spiritual leader of Jews of Middle East origin, who are represented by the Shas faction in parliament. His comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday.
A Shas official, Tzvika Yaacobson, did not deny Yosef made the comments but said they were taken out of context and that the rabbi's marks were misinterpreted.
"He has a special style he uses when he speaks to the people," said Yaacobson, who heads the Shas faction in Israel's parliament.
"He tells jokes that you may like, and may not like. When you just tell the joke, you are ignoring the connotation."
Yosef also said recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and that Katrina's victims suffered "because they have no God."
Yosef singled out black victims, saying "they don't study Torah."
He used the word "Kushim," which in the Bible refers to an ancient African people but in vernacular Hebrew is considered derogatory.
Yosef, 85, is no stranger to controversy.
He has called on the Israeli army to "joyfully" annihilate Arabs with rockets, and he caused an uproar when he stated that the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust died because they were reincarnations of sinners in previous generations.
© 2005 AAP
"It was God's retribution. God does not shortchange anyone," Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel, said during his weekly sermon on Tuesday.
"He (Bush) perpetrated the expulsion (of Jews from Gaza). Now everyone is mad at him. This is his punishment for what he did to Gush Katif, and everyone else who did as he told them, their time will come, too," Yosef said.
Gush Katif is the name of what was the largest bloc of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Israel evacuated all 8,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza two weeks ago as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
Yosef is a spiritual leader of Jews of Middle East origin, who are represented by the Shas faction in parliament. His comments were broadcast on Channel 10 TV on Wednesday.
A Shas official, Tzvika Yaacobson, did not deny Yosef made the comments but said they were taken out of context and that the rabbi's marks were misinterpreted.
"He has a special style he uses when he speaks to the people," said Yaacobson, who heads the Shas faction in Israel's parliament.
"He tells jokes that you may like, and may not like. When you just tell the joke, you are ignoring the connotation."
Yosef also said recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and that Katrina's victims suffered "because they have no God."
Yosef singled out black victims, saying "they don't study Torah."
He used the word "Kushim," which in the Bible refers to an ancient African people but in vernacular Hebrew is considered derogatory.
Yosef, 85, is no stranger to controversy.
He has called on the Israeli army to "joyfully" annihilate Arabs with rockets, and he caused an uproar when he stated that the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust died because they were reincarnations of sinners in previous generations.
© 2005 AAP