Gaza, Palestine - A top Palestinian minister called on Wednesday for the suspension of a Muslim preacher who described Jews as "a virus resembling
AIDS" and questioned the Holocaust in a sermon broadcast live on Palestinian television.
Palestinian Minister of Information Nabil Shaath told Reuters he had asked the Muslim Waqf and Religious Affairs Ministry, who employ the cleric, "to suspend him, investigate him and prevent him from delivering further sermons on Fridays."
It was one of the strongest signs of action from President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority against incitement, following criticism from Israel that it is not doing enough on that front to ensure confidence and allow peacemaking.
In his sermon at a Gaza Strip mosque last Friday, cleric Ibrahim Mdaires denied that six million Jews were killed in the World War II Nazi Holocaust. His message was broadcast live on a government-run television station.
"The entire Islamic nation was lost because Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation, and because Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers," Mdaires said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the sermon violated a Palestinian Authority commitment to halt anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish incitement and the matter would be raised in meetings with Palestinian officials.
"The Palestinian Authority can't say that it is turning over a new page ... and at the same time tolerate public statements like these, which are antithetical to anyone who believes in peaceful reconciliation," Regev said.
Shaath, who is responsible for Palestine Television, said he would ensure that such sermons were never again broadcast as the comments constituted incitement and violated Islamic teachings.
"We condemn assault of Judaism as a religion. As Muslims we reject such remarks," said Shaath, who is also deputy Palestinian prime minister.
Mdaires also accused the Jewish people of causing World War II by "provoking Nazism to wage war against the entire world" and said they had overexaggerated the number of Jewish victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust.
"What was done to the Jews was a crime, but isn't what the Jews are doing today in the land of Palestine a crime," he said, referring to Israeli occupation in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip. Abbas has said he would address concerns over incitement since he was elected to succeed late President
Yasser Arafat on a peacemaking platform. Abbas has also accused Israel of unspecified incitement.