Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis called Jews 'a spreading cancer'
Photo: AP
The center demands Abbas announce the dismissal of his TV head
Photo: AP
'A blatant anti-Semitic broadcast'
Simon Wiesenthal Center calls for Abbas to dismiss TV chief after 'worst' anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial broadcast
The Simon Wiesenthal Center
has called on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to fire the Head of Palestinian TV, after a televised sermon called Jews "a spreading cancer."
"The Jews are the cancer spreading all over the world...the Jews are responsible for all wars and conflicts," Sheikh Ibrahim Mudairis said Friday during a sermon from his Gaza Mosque in the presence of uniformed Palestinian police.
"Do not ask what Germany did to the Jews, but what the Jews did to Germany," he went on to say. "True the Germans killed and burnt Jews, but the Jews exaggerate the numbers to gain propaganda advantages and sympathy."
'A big lie'
In a stinging press release, the center's Dean Rabbi Marvin Hier and Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper said the broadcast came days before Abbas's scheduled meeting with President Bush and during the week commemorating 60 years since the Nazis' defeat.
"Even in the days of Arafat, we did not see such a blatant anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying canard broadcast on Palestinian TV, whose current chief was personally appointed by Abu Mazen (Abbas)," the two said in a press release following the incident.
Both Cooper and Hier have demanded Abbas inform Bush that the head of the Palestinian Broadcasting Company, and all those associated with the broadcast of this "big lie," have been fired in their upcoming meeting.
"Is this genocidal sermon the kind of peace dividend that the people of Israel can look forward to?" they said.
