Palestinians, take note: Neturei Karta aren’t good bedfellows
Haaretz - English Edition17 Jan 2024Linda Dayan
Jose Luis Magana /AP
Neturei Karta members during a rally for Gaza in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.
If you’ve seen pictures from the massive pro-Palestine protest in Washington on Saturday, or virtually any other major American rally for the cause, you’ve probably seen them, front and center: ultra-Orthodox Jewish men with sidelocks and full garb holding signs with anti-Israel, pro-Palestine messages.

They are Neturei Karta, a small Haredi sect that broke off from Agudat Yisrael in 1938. Their communities in the United States, United Kingdom and, yes, Israel, are known first and foremost for their fierce opposition to the Jewish State. Their resistance is religious: They believe that until the messiah comes, Jews have no business establishing self-rule in the biblical Land of Israel. Until then, Jews must remain loyal citizens of their host nations and cannot attempt to heretically end the exile imposed by God by their own hand.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss even addressed the march for Gaza in Washington (via pre-recorded video message). “We want the world to know that because we are Jews true to the Torah, we are crying and hurting with the people of Gaza,” he said. “It is antisemitic what the Zionist state of Israel is committing: the crime, the occupation and the slaughter in Gaza,” he said to a cheering crowd.

They are by no means the only anti-Zionist Haredi sect – the Satmar community in New York is both larger and older – but Neturei Karta’s willingness to adopt the signs, symbols and slogans of Palestinian liberation is unique. In doing so, they’ve become welcome sights at pro-Palestine events, often draped with keffiyah-patterned scarves over their long black coats. After all, there is no better proof that anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism than having the most visibly Jewish people toting signs calling for Israel’s dismantling. This is what “real Jews” look like, the pictures suggest, and this is what “real Jews” believe.

Among Jews, Neturei Karta are known for their participation in the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran in 2006 – more colloquially known as Iran’s Holocaust denial conference. In his speech there, Weiss did not deny that Jews, including his grandparents, had been killed in the Holocaust, but stated that he had documentation he could not show because of “time constraints” that the Zionists “collaborated with Nazis, thwarted efforts to save the Jews and said ‘Orthodox Jews we do not want, let them die.’” He further stated that the Zionists wanted more Jews to die in the Holocaust, so that the nations of the world would give them more land for their suffering.

Jews wince at the tokenization of Neturei Karta largely because of the company they keep, including the Iranian regime (they were particularly cozy with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who had called the Holocaust a “myth”), Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh and Louis Farrakhan, among others. But these names may not dissuade people who see the above-mentioned as freedom fighters and truthtellers from embracing the sect as their preferred Jewish voices. Even their archconservative beliefs (have we ever seen a woman representing the sect?) can be forgiven and forgotten.

Instead, pro-Palestinian activists should know that they and Neturei Karta do not want the same thing. For the time being, sure, their objectives align. But they should treat them with the same caution that Zionist Jews apply to the Christians who only support Israel for its future role in the end times.

In the eyes of Neturei Karta, when the messiah comes – and, for them, this is not a matter of “if” – there will be no river-to-sea Palestine. There will be a monarchical Jewish theocracy in the entire Land of Israel. The righteous dead will be revived, the exiled Jews will gather from the corners of the Earth and all will recognize the law of the Torah as the truth. Anti-Zionism, as they see it, is part of the commandments put before them to usher in this world to come, one that doesn’t quite have room for the sovereignty of the Muslims of Sheikh Jarrah and the Christians of Bethlehem.

The pro-Palestinian movement has many Jewish allies who do not see this as an endgame that the world can embrace. These include organizations that have already been involved in pro-Palestine activism, like IfNotNow and Shoresh. Of course, they may not be as identifiably Jewish at first glance as Neturei Karta, and it might necessitate interacting with people who have been to Israel or are – heaven forfend – Israelis themselves.

It might also mean that their slogans will be less reductive and their Holocaust knowledge less counterfactual. But even if it’s more convenient, the movement for Palestine should not be building its bridges with people whose ideology necessitates that the Palestinian state be a temporary one, no matter how willingly they may tokenize themselves.

Neturei Karta’s ideology necessitates that the Palestinian state be temporary, no matter how willingly they tokenize themselves.

Article Name:Palestinians, take note: Neturei Karta aren’t good bedfellows
Publication:Haaretz - English Edition
Section:NEWS
Author:Linda Dayan
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