Hurricane 'sent to punish US'
2005-09-07 15:16
Jerusalem - A leading Israeli rabbi has said that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for United States President George W Bush's support for Israel's Gaza pullout.
"It was God's retribution. God does not short-change anyone," Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel and the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas group, said during his weekly sermon on Tuesday.
His comments were carried on Wednesday on the Israeli news web site Y-net. A Shas official, Tzvika Yaacobson, did not deny Ovadia made the comments but said they were taken out of context.
According to Y-net, Ovadia also said recent natural disasters were the result of a lack of Torah study and that Kaatrina's victims suffered "because they have no God."
"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," Ovadia was quoted as saying.
Gush Katif is the name of 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 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from the Palestinians.
Ovadia's comments drew fierce criticism in a Y-net readers forum.
"This is one of the most idiotic, offensive pronouncement I've seen yet about the hurricane. It rivals the kind of idiocy we've seen from Islamic extremists," said one reader, identifying himself only as Howard.
Another reader, Jennifer, wrote: "You stupid ignorant little man. How can anyone blame this disaster on politics? Go crawl back into your little hole before you do any more harm."
Lawmaker Ronny Brison was quoted as saying, "What, God is cross-eyed? He metes out punishments at the wrong place? We're sick and tired of Rabbi Ovadia's primitive worldview. He already did his part, he can remove himself from public life."
Yaacobson, who heads the Shas faction in the Israeli parliament, said people were misinterpreting the rabbi.
"He has a special style he uses when he speaks to the people," said Yaacobson. "He tells jokes that you may like, and may not like. When you just tell the joke, you are ignoring the connotation."
Ovadia is no stranger to controversy. Last March he declared that God will strike dead "the evil one" who evacuates Israelis from the Gaza Strip, referring to Sharon.
He has called on the Israeli army to "joyfully" annihilate Arabs with rockets, and caused a huge uproar when he stated that the six million Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust died because they were reincarnations of sinners in previous generations.
- SAPA