On Saturday night, Rabbi Yosef, who is the spiritual leader of the powerful political party Shas, issued a blistering, hellfire-and-brimstone attack on the leftist education minister, Yossi Sarid.
A11 Israeli Rabbi on Offensive Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, left, who is the popular spiritual leader of the powerful Israeli political party Shas, issued a blistering attack on the leftist education minister, Yossi Sarid, on Saturday night.
Suspicions as to who carried out the attack immediately centered on the leftist rebel groups National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish initials, ELN; and Popular Liberation Army, or EPL.
In a recent sermon, which was broadcast to his followers, he issued a blistering attack, including a curse, on the leftist education minister, Yossi Sarid.
Other charges have been made against a man who scribbled graffiti in a public toilet, a taxi driver whose comments were recorded by a passenger on a smartphone and two students who put on a play at their university last year commemorating an attack on leftists in the 1970s.
Even in a country long accustomed to political violence including assassinations, civilian massacres and the extermination of thousands of leftist activists, the attack on the court by the now defunct M-19 rebel movement and the government's heavy-handed response stand out because the events occurred in the very heart of Colombian democracy.
However, is it not also an attack on liberal or leftist free speech when the President threatens to take hostage federal funding for a public educational institution if views expressed there run counter to his own?
But because he is running for a seat on the Jaffa-Tel Aviv City Council on the leftist Meretz Party's slate, and not with an Arab party, he has been attacked by members of his own community.
Many leftists say the base invites an attack on the Spanish capital.
As I was writing this, the Im Tirtzu organization, which promotes the Occupation through division, libel and graphic and verbal obscenity, distributed pamphlets in synagogues aimed at changing the Yizkor memorial prayer for fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, to include an attack on leftist Israelis.
The leftist guerrilla group known as Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility for the rocket attack on the American Embassy in Athens two weeks ago, saying it was in retaliation for the "criminal U.S. war on terrorism".
