As Israel continues to exact revenge for Hamas’s Oct. 7 incursion by killing over 20,000 Gazans, the Jewish state and its military continue to find support among a majority of its population.
Over 65% of Israelis supported a ground offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory, while nearly 57% thought the amount of firepower used in Gaza was “too little,” according to two different polls conducted by the Maariv newspaper and the Tel Aviv University, respectively.
However, one Jewish group has firmly aligned itself with the Palestinian cause, calling for an immediate end to the violence in Gaza and opposing Israeli actions in general across Palestinian territories.
“Our Jewish identity demands, requires, obligates to be in solidarity with the Palestinian cause,” said Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesperson for the anti-Zionist Jewish group, Neturei Karta.
Despite being a minority among Haredi Jews, often referred to as Orthodox Jews, the nearly century-old Neturei Karta has had, over the years, a small albeit vocal presence at pro-Palestinian rallies across the world, and particularly in the United States.
While pro-Palestinian camps have embraced Neturei Karta members for their activism, other Jewish and Zionist groups in Israel and beyond have targeted them.
Regardless, Neturei Karta continues to voice its opposition of the State of Israel, its violent tactics and the wholesale persecution of Palestinians in besieged Gaza and other occupied territories.
When asked about how the group balances its loyalty to the Jewish identity and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, Rabbi Weiss told Daily Sabah in an exclusive interview that “because we are Jewish, we support and we sympathize and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”
“Balancing means it is two contradictory things and you try to balance that it should somehow work out for both ... like the two-state solution that people are trying to work with two contradictory ideas, but that's a fallacy,” he said, pointing to the fact that Muslims and Jews have lived peacefully, side-by-side for hundreds of years in Jerusalem and Palestine.
“And that is ... the concept of showing gratitude, which we must show.”
Weiss then referred to how the Torah tells not to kill and steal while forbidding Jews “to make our own nationalism, our own state, our own sovereignty because we're in the decree of exile of God.”
“We are forbidden to steal, and we are, as I say, to show gratitude, and we are not to take the land from the Palestinians,” he added, thus accentuating the point that the Jewish identity demands to be in peace and solidarity with the Palestinian people.
In reply to how Neturei Karta interprets the same religious texts and traditions that are often used to justify the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, the rabbi accused the Zionists of misconstruing the Torah to accomplish their goal of occupation and having the sympathy and support of the Jews.
He also accused them of falsehood, propaganda and inciting hate for Palestinians among Jewish people to support their occupation.
“God gave them the land, and that the Palestinian people are anti-Semitic and hate the Jews, that it's a religious conflict. All of this is repugnant, repulsive, and totally not true,” said Weiss.
Speaking of Israelis and Jews he said that “they have been misled, they've been fooled, conned by the Zionists.”
He denied that Palestinians were anti-Semites and posed great danger to the Jews by saying, “This is repugnant. The Palestinians want to live in peace.” He underlined Israeli expansionism and violence as the root cause behind anti-Semitism.
“Every minute of it in this mass slaughter that's happening in Gaza is beyond, beyond the crime and everything, but the cause of exacerbating anti-Semitism.”
“Everybody can see with their open eyes how Zionism is the cause, at the end of the day that brought the Oct. 7 mass slaughter,” he said.
Israel has since launched an indiscriminate military campaign on Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians and displacing over 1.4 million people in the besieged territory.
Asked whether Israel was using the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion as an excuse to forward its occupation, Rabbi Weiss said: “Obviously they are strengthening their occupation. There's no question what they're doing, the slaughter and total mass murder of the people of Gaza.”
“What they're doing is mass murder. It's unacceptable. It's against God. Its occupation is a revolt, a rebellion against God,” he added, calling Zionism a cancer for Jews.
Weiss said that members of Neturei Karta cry and hurt with the people of Palestine and Gaza.
“We should cry and feel and suffer for the people of Palestine, especially because this occupation and this oppression is being done in the name of our religion, Judaism, which is in truth, totally contradictory,” he added.
“Our religion is totally contradictory, and opposes entirely Zionism in the State of Israel, and the murder, it's all unjust, it is a Nakba (Catastrophe).”
Despite often being targeted by other Jewish groups, leaders and communities, particularly those who adhere to Zionism, Neturei Karta members are determined to protest the ongoing Israeli violence in Gaza and defend the Palestinian cause at all costs.
“We do go out for demonstrations constantly, even without Palestinian people, we go to the United Nations and other places, we're always demonstrating throughout the years, since the beginning of Zionism,” the rabbi said underlining the fact that the movement was born in Jerusalem back in 1938.
“This last two and a half months since Oct. 7, we have been (protesting) daily tirelessly, every single day. We are out on the streets, on radio and television and talk shows, and (using) every means possible to tell the world that they should support and save the people of Gaza and the people of Palestine.”
“We try to do our best and we try to be in contact with the people of Gaza and Palestine, to comfort them and give them courage to show that we are together with them in their struggle,” Weiss added.
Asked about how he envisioned a peaceful and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Neturei Karta spokesperson said that “the solution is, of course, the removal entirely of the occupation of the Zionist State of Israel,” which he deemed a rebellion against God.
“We of course pray to the Almighty that he should bring ... a speedy and peaceful total end to the occupation of Palestine in its entirety and of course the mass slaughter in Gaza.”
“At the same time, we're urging everybody, do not be intimidated, do not be silenced. It's not anti-Semitic to speak against this occupation, against the Zionists,” Weiss said, calling Israel “the personification of anti-Semitism.”
“They cause bloodshed and suffering, so we know that at the end of the day it will end. We know at the end of the day this state will end. We know at the end of the day that there will be a free Palestine,” said Weiss.
