Orthodox Rabbi praises Qatar’s Gaza mediation, says traditional Jews oppose existence of Israel
Published: 9 August 2024
By Hussain Ahmad
Orthodox Jews who are united against Zionism are thankful to Qatar for its constant efforts to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza and achieve the freedom of Palestine, and leaders of Qatar have been working for years for this objective, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a spokesperson of Neturei Karta (Jews United Against Zionism), who is based in New York, told News Trail in an exclusive interview.
Rabbi Weiss flew to Doha from New York to attend the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas leader who was assassinated in Tehran by Israel last week.
He also said he found the people of Qatar very warm, friendly, welcoming and respectful during his visit.
“The message I want to convey to the world by attending the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh is that we support and sympathise with the people and cause of Palestine in their struggle for freedom and condemn the atrocities committed against them, and we want to say that the actions of Israel don’t emanate from the religion of Judaism,” Weiss said, whose grandparents were killed by Nazis in Auschwitz while his father escaped to New York.
He said orthodox Jews are harassed by Zionists in Israel and elsewhere but that hasn’t stopped them from speaking the truth as tens of thousands of orthodox Jews regularly participate in protests in the US, Europe and Israel against the atrocities committed against Palestinians by Israel.
Neturei Karta’s website says the group promotes “traditional Judaism in opposition to the philosophy of Zionism, and it opposes the existence of the State of Israel and condemns the Zionist occupation of Palestine, along with condemning the ongoing atrocities committed against its people”.
“A movement of Zionism was formed by non-practicing Jews with a goal to transform Judaism from a religion into nationalism, and to replace fulfillment of the Torah with allegiance to a political movement as the defining quality of a Jew. This is a general uprooting of Judaism,” it says.
Weiss said: “One of the basics of Judaism was that “we are a people in exile due to Divine decree. and required to be loyal citizens, not rebel or wage wars; our banishment from the Holy Land was a Devine decree and the ideology of Zionism, a recent innovation, which seeks to force the end of exile, is contrary to Jewish belief and millennia of well accepted Jewish tradition.”
Furthermore, the Zionists accomplished their goal of statehood through killing and stealing, in the process depriving the indigenous inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians, of their rights. which are forbidden in the Torah.
Weiss said the October 7 attack has brought about a radical, favourable change in Western perceptions about Palestine and created huge awareness among the Western public about atrocities committed by Israel.
“The fear of talking against Israel has gone. Students and teachers are getting arrested and thrown from campuses in the US, but that doesn’t deter them from speaking out. This is a radical change and let’s hope with the help from the Almighty this will lead to an early liberation of Palestine,” Weiss said.
