Abbas to rabbis: "Israel is here to stay"

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received in Ramallah a group of rabbis including the eldest daughter of the extremist Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who had wished death for all Palestinians.Hebrew media said that during the meeting on Monday Abbas expressed hope to one day meet with the Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef two years after he wished him dead where he said in 2010 “May all the nasty people who hate Israel, such as Abbas, vanish from our world. May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel.”Abbas said he wished no harm to Israel. “Israel is here to stay, no matter what certain extremists say.”Referring to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abbas said, “It is not that there is one state too many in the region, rather that there is one state too few,” the Israeli TV Channel 2 reported.Also present at the meeting were Rabbi Menachem Froman, the chief rabbi of the settlement of Tekoa; former MK Rabbi Michael Melchior; and the head of the Eretz Shalom organization, Nachum Pechenik./129