PA blasts ministers’ honoring of extremist rabbi as ‘sponsorship of terrorism’

The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry lashes out at the slated participation of two hardline ministers at an event later this week honoring an extremist rabbi who has praised the Israeli settler responsible for mowing down 29 Muslim worshipers in a terror attack at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriacrchs in 1994.

“The participation of the two Israeli ministers in the granting of a prize to ‘Ginsburg’ is formal sponsorship of terrorism,” the PA Foreign Ministry says in a statement.

Education Minister Rafi Peretz and Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich are expected to attend an annual “Torah symposium” on Thursday put on by a religious NGO in the central town of Givat Shmuel called the Cathedra for Torah and Wisdom. At the end of the day-long event, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh is slated to be honored with a “Torah creativity” award.

Ginsburgh’s writings include a pamphlet that praises Hebron massacre perpetrator Baruch Goldstein. Critics have accused him of fueling attacks by extremist Jews against Palestinians and other non-Jews in Israel and the West Bank.

He also endorsed “The King’s Torah,” a 2009 book by firebrand rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur. The book quotes religious sages as permitting, under certain conditions, the killing of non-Jews, including babies, “if there is a good chance they will grow up to be like their evil parents.” The book also says the commandment “Thou shalt not murder” does not necessarily apply to non-Jews.

— Adam Rasgon