“Cursing Israel is not permissible since Israel is the name of God’s prophet Jacob (PBUH) and it is more appropriate to curse the Jews [instead],” said Saleh al-Fowzan, a senior cleric and a member of Saudi Arabia’s high council of religious scholars, Al-Alam Arabic news network reported on Monday.

“Some people say, may God’s curse be upon Israel, and this amounts to cursing Prophet Jacob (PBUH). A Muslim must pay attention and instead of censuring Israel, they should say curse be upon the Jews,” al-Fowzan said in a voice message attributed to him.

Al-Fowzan’s reported remarks has prompted a huge controversy on the Internet’s social media sites such as the Tweeter, leading to divisions between those that approve and those that oppose his edict on cursing the Zionist regime.

Many of the critics of the controversial edict reject al-Fowzan’s reasoning for it and insist that cursing the Israel is clearly intended for the Zionist regime and not prophet Jacob.

The nearly a-month-old Israeli onslaught against the Palestinian population in the impoverished Gaza has so far killed nearly 2,000 people and injured close to 10,000 other, more than 80 percent of whom are civilians, according to UN figures.

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