Muqtada to Electricity Minister over Israel: “Go to Hell!”
According to AFP, Aiham al-Samarrai, interim minister of electricity in Iraq, has said that although Iraq would not buy electricity from Israel (as it does from Turkey and Syria), at some future time it might be willing to sell electricity to Israel ““at three times the price. We will extract money from Israel for the benefit the Iraqi people . . .”
On hearing of al-Samarrai’s position, radical Shiite preacher Muqtada al-Sadr said in his Friday sermon in Kufa, “We have been told that the electricity minister has said that we have no objection to selling electricity to Israel. We won’t have any objection at all once we send you and your followers to hell.”
Most Shiite clerics view Israel negatively because of its treatment of the Palestinians, fellow Muslims.