The U.S. criticized Sunday the spiritual leader of Israel's Shas party for his week-end tirade of Palestine leader Mahmoud Abbas that the latter should "vanish from our world."
Washington termed the remarks of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as "deeply offensive".
"We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitements such as this hurt the cause of peace. As we move forward to re-launch peace negotiations, it is important that actions by people on all sides help to advance our efforts, not hinder them," State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.
Saeb Erakat, chief Palestinian negotiator to the Israel-Palestine direct talks, condemned the speech as "an incitement to genocide."
Yosef expressed the wish that "all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), vanish from our world." He further hoped that divine wrath would visit plague upon all Palestinians who were against Israel.
The "verbal volley" came even as the stage is being set for direct talks between Israel and Palestine to be held September 12 in Washington.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, denounced the inflammatory comments, saying the Jewish state wanted to live in peace with Palestine. "(The comments) do not reflect the views of either Benjamin Netanyahu or of his government," a communique from the Prime Minister's office said.
This was not the first time that Yosef, 89, who founded the ultra-conservative Shas party, kicked up a major row. Earlier he passed similar comments on Arabs, secular Jews, liberals, women and gays.
During a Palestinian uprising in 2001, he called for the extermination of Arabs, and said that the latter should not be shown any leniency. However, he subsequently back-tracked it, saying he was merely referring to Palestinians who targeted Israel.
Meanwhile, Abbas said Sunday that Israel's refusal to halt construction of settlements in occupied Eastern Jerusalem could well undermine the fresh round of peace talks.
He said Israel's security concerns could be understood, but these should not become a convenient excuse for grabbing other's land and expanding Jewish settlements.
The major sticking points--including the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied territories, the status of Jerusalem, the contours of a Palestinian nation and the right to return for Palestinians to their homeland, remain unresolved.
US President Barack Obama has also invited President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan to attend the talks in view of their roles in the process.
On the eve of the talks, Obama is scheduled to host bilateral talks as well as a dinner for the four leaders.
Talks broke down in 2008 in the wake of Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
In May, US-sponsored indirect "proximity talks" got under way largely due to the shuttle diplomacy of George Mitchell, special envoy of Obama to the Middle East.
Currently, around 500,000 Jews occupy the 100-odd settlements on West Bank and East Jerusalem built since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. These constructions are deemed illegal under international law, but Israel refuses to accept this.
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