President Bush Urged To Protest Antisemitic Broadcast At White House Meeting With Abbas

President Bush Urged To Protest Antisemitic Broadcast At White House Meeting With Abbas

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has urged President Bush to protest the broadcast of an antisemitic sermon byPalestinian TV during his May 26th White House meeting with PA President Abbas. The request to the President by Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, dean and associate dean ofthe Simon Wiesenthal Center (respectively) came on the heels of a May 13th genocidal sermon broadcast live on Palestinian Television by Gaza cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis. Inthat sermon, Mudairis, who appears frequently on Palestinian Television, charged that, "The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world...the Jews are a virus like AIDShitting humankind...Jews are responsible for all wars and conflicts....Do not ask what Germany did to the Jews but what the Jews did to Germany. True, the Germans killed andburned Jews but the Jews exaggerate the numbers to gain propaganda advantages and sympathy…."

The Sheikh went on to say that God has predetermined that the Jewish problem will be solved with theirextermination and that God has also predetermined that Christian-Islam interactions will end with today's Christian countries under Islam.

The Center’s letter to President Bush said in part: "...Mr. President, this speech exceeds in its blatantantisemitism and Holocaust denial even the most hateful sermons preached under Yassir Arafat's rule. Furthermore, it coincided with the civilized world's commemoration of the 60thanniversary of the defeat of Nazism. What message does this television broadcast convey to the people of Israel other than to leave them to wonder whether this is the peacedividend they can look forward to from their new Palestinian partners?...We urge you, Mr. President, to discuss this matter with President Abbas when he visits you and to makeclear that the seeds of peace cannot be grown in fields of hate," they said.

The current chief of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation was personally appointed by Mr. Abbas and severaldays ago the Center demanded that he be removed from his position. Reacting to a news report that Palestinian Minister of Information Nabil Shaath has asked the Muslim Waqf andReligious Affairs Ministry who employs Sheik Mudairis, "to suspend him, investigate him and prevent him from delivering further sermons on Fridays," Wiesenthal Center officialssaid, "While this is a positive development, there will no hopes for a lasting Middle East peace unless President Abbas takes immediate steps to stop all incitement to terrorism,Holocaust denial, and antisemitic hatred on the Palestinian airwaves and school curricula."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, or visitwww.wiesenthal.com.