Egypt / 05-04-2013
Egyptian minister makes antisemitic remarks 
Another top Egyptian official has gone on the record with remarks smearing Jews and calling them not worthy to live.
In this most recent case, Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowments Talaat Afifi was talking to Sada Al-Abad television. An interviewer asked him if he would ever visit Israel, Afifi responded:
"We hope that the words of the Prophet Muhammad will be fulfilled: 'Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees, but the rocks and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him – except for the gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews.' We fully believe that the future of this land lies with Islam and the Muslims."
Afifi’s remarks came in the wake of an international scandal touched off by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, head of Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood party, which draws its support from Egypt’s traditionalists and conservatives.
In 2010, Morsi made a speech referring to "Zionists" as "bloodsuckers who attack Palestinians", and he went on to call them "the descendants of apes and pigs", and also call US President Barack Obama a liar. The remarks made to a domestic audience became widely-known earlier this year.
Morsi in a meeting with US Senator John McCain tried to laugh off the hue and cry, saying that the fuss over comments he made several years in the past had been blown out of proportion by Jewish-controlled media. McCain later said he was shocked by the assertion and did not agree with it.
