Ultra-Orthodox mentor curses Sharon over Gaza plan


AFP
 Date: 03-09-05

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party cursed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over his plan to end Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip.

"Oh the cruelty of a man daring to do such things. Let God strike him down ... He is torturing the people of Israel," the rabbi reportedly preached in a sermon at a Jerusalem synagogue late Tuesday.

Yosef earlier met settler rabbis from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, who asked him to change his mind and support a bill being drawn up by Sharon's right-wing Likud party advocating a referendum on the controversial plan.

"He (Sharon) has no pity for these poor people (the settlers) ... A referendum? Why? The public has not understood. Most would vote for disengagement ... What does it mean to evict Jews for Arabs?" he said.

Lacking a parliamentary majority, Likud needs the backing of Shas's 11 MPs for the bill to have any chance of success.

But Shas has rejected the idea of a referendum, fearing it could create a precedent for plebiscites to be held on other divisive issues such as the relationship between the Israeli state and the Jewish religion.

Sharon, who has received death threats from Israeli hardliners who had long regarded him as a champion of Jewish settlement of the occupied territories, has vowed to press on with the pullout regardless of domestic opposition.

Source

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