Members of the anti-Zionist group meet senior Hezbollah official in Lebanon to support "Land Day" protests.
By JOANNA PARASZCZUKNatorei Karta(photo credit: MAHMOUD KHEIR/REUTERS)
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called on Attorney- General Yehuda Weinstein on Monday to investigate members of the Neturei Karta movement following reports that they met with senior Hezbollah officials in Beirut.Eldad is seeking the prosecution of any Israelis who took part.A fringe ultra-Orthodox sect established in Jerusalem in 1938, Neturei Karta (Aramaic for “Guardians of the City”) believes Israel can be reestablished only after the coming of the Messiah. The group therefore rejects Zionism and opposes the existence of the State of Israel.The Arabic-language pro- Hezbollah radio station al- Nour (the light) reported on Monday that senior Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil al- Kauk received a delegation from Neturei Karta in the Lebanese capital.American Neturei Karta leader Yisroel Dovid Weiss met with al-Kauk, the Hezbollah official in charge of southern Lebanon, as part of his group’s participation in Friday’s Global March to Jerusalem, al- Nour said.The pro-Hezbollah station reported that Weiss used the visit to call for the “demise of the so-called State of Israel” and said Jewish identity had been ‘stolen by the global Zionists.”According to al-Nour, Kauk called Weiss’s visit a “slap in the face for the Zionist apartheid entity in Israel” and called on Neturei Karta to “expose the usurping entity’s anti- Jewish, anti-Islam and anti- Christian [stance].”Hezbollah said that Atallah Hamoud, deputy chief of its Palestinian department, had also been present during Weiss’s visit.The terror group said in a statement that Weiss congratulated Hezbollah on its “resistance” to Israel.According to Hezbollah, Weiss said the Jews had been “expelled from the Land of Israel because of their sins” and added that “no Israeli state should be established before the advent of the Messiah, and the Palestinian nation is fully entitled to establish a state on its own soil.”
Neturei Karta’s participation in Friday’s Global March is still being widely reported in the Arabic press, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon, with several news outlets featuring videos of the rabbis at the event.On Sunday, the Lebanese newspaper as-Safir published a lengthy interview conducted in Beirut’s Golden Plaza Hotel with six Neturei Karta rabbis, citing the movement as saying Israel was “Zionist and not Jewish” and that Jews should live in exile, including in a Palestinian state.The rabbis told the paper that “Israel is doomed to extinction” and that their participation in the Global March had been a “message to the Arab world and the Palestinian people.”In the past, Weiss has given interviews to Iran’s state-owned news agency IRNA in which he expressed his desire for Israel’s demise.
