Update: Israeli Football Team Members Attacked in Poland
Following an attack on members of Israel’s Hapoel Petach Tikva soccer team, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued the following updated statement:
| Israel's peace partner still unwilling to stop incitement to murder of Jews The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on the US and other members of the Middle East Quartet to demand that Palestinian Authority(PA) President Abbas immediately fire the PA's highest religious figure — Mufti Muhammad Hussein after he told a recent Fatah event that "the Hour of Resurrection will not come until"Jews are killed by Muslims. In a speech broadcast by PA TV on January 9th, (As reported by Palestnian Media Watch) the Mufti invoked a Hadith (tradition attributed to the prophet Mohammed) which states inpart:
In addition, the Mufti was introduced by a moderator who charged, "Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews) is awar of religion and faith." "The US State Department and its counterparts in the Middle East Quartet should demand that PA president Abbas immediately fire Mufti Hussein for giving religious sanction to the murderof Jews," said Rabbi Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, dean and founder and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO. "Even as Israel and Palestinian Authority representatives sat down to try to re-boot their negotiations, PA television broadcast calls to kill Jews under the banner of Islam. The starktruth is that in 2012, even with the upheavals of the Arab Spring sweeping the region, the hatred of Jews continues to be validated by religious and political elite. Simply put, Israelis are still seeking a peace partner that will stop incitement to murder Jews. To date, the Palestinians have been unwilling to live up to their minimal obligationsdating back to the Oslo Accords and other agreements to stop incitement against their Jewish neighbors. Unless and until they do, there is no hope for any real peace in the Holy Land,"they concluded. For more information, please contact Rabbi Abraham Cooper, 310-210-9750, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobiledevice.⨠The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400.000 members. It is an NGO at international agencies including the UnitedNations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the OAS and the Latin American Parliament. |