It takes a lot to overshadow the first official papal visit to Israel, but on the eve of Pope John Paul II's arrival here, a religious sage has managed the feat, writes David Horovitz from Jerusalem.
Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, 80-year-old spiritual leader of the ultraOrthodox Shas party, has plunged the government and the legal system into chaos - and yesterday relegated the Pope to the inside pages of the tabloid dailies - by launching an extraordinarily vicious verbal assault on the Education Minister, Mr Yossi Sarid.
In a sermon delivered to supporters, and carried by satellite to tens of thousands more, Rabbi Yosef compared Mr Sarid to both Satan and to Haman, a legendary oppressor of Jews whose death by hanging is marked on this week's Jewish festival of Purim. Mr Sarid, declared the rabbi, "must be uprooted from the seed of Israel . . . Just as revenge was wrought on Haman, so it will be wrought on him."
The minister's "crime" is that, since taking office last year, he has sought to impose stricter financial controls on a Shas-sponsored school system, and marginalised a Shas politician who serves as deputy education minister. To the rabbi's further displeasure, Mr Sarid, who is fiercely secular and heads the left-wing Meretz party, has included poems by a Palestinian nationalist poet, Mahmoud Darwish, on next year's school Hebrew literature syllabus.
In the wake of Rabbi Yosef's militant address, a life-size puppet of Mr Sarid was seen suspended from a top-floor apartment in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Meah She'arim district yesterday, reinforcing fears the sermon might be interpreted as incitement to murder. Israel's Attorney-General, Mr Elyakim Rubinstein, is considering opening an investigation into the affair, with the possibility of prosecuting the rabbi.
The Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, has attempted to smooth over the affair, holding crisis meetings with both Shas and Meretz politicians, criticising the rabbi's outburst, but not condemning him for it. Rabbi Yosef, for his part, yesterday issued a moderating clarification, noting that "it is forbidden to harm any human being".
But he stopped short of a formal apology.
Some of Mr Barak's aides now want him to throw Shas out of the coalition, but the 17-man party is his main ally and be forced into new elections.