The U.S. government on Tuesday strongly condemned disparaging comments about Jews that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was reported to have made almost three years ago when he was a Muslim Brotherhood leader, and urged him to repudiate his remarks. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the language Morsi used was "deeply offensive" and that U.S. officials had raised concerns with the Egyptian government on the matter. Morsi was an Islamist political leader in 2010 when, according to a video obtained by the New York Times, he urged Egyptians to "nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred" for Jews and Zionists. In a television interview months later, he described Zionists as "these bloodsuckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs," the newspaper said. He noted, however, that Morsi, as president, had worked with the Obama administration to help broker an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza late last year and had promised to uphold Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
