Neturei Karta International

“[The Zionists] are guilty just as the Nazis are. They collaborated with the Nazis.”
Yisroel Dovid Weiss, nkusa.org, Dec 12 2006

“We feel your [Hamas’s] suffering. We cry your cry…[Israel] is your land. It is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity.”
Yisroel Dovid Weiss, haaretz.com, Jul 16 2009

“Neturei Karta opposed the establishment of and retain all opposition to the existence of the so-called ‘State of Israel’!”
Neturei Karta, nkusa.org, Mar 22 2024

NKI was founded in 1938 in British Mandate Palestine after splitting off from the religious political party Agudat Israel. As the Agudat Israel party began to adopt a “more compromising” approach to the Zionist movement in the 1930s, NKI was created as a sect unwilling to compromise on its anti-Zionist beliefs.

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture. Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.

In March 2024, NKI’s official website said: “Neturei Karta opposed the establishment of and retain all opposition to the existence of the so-called ‘State of Israel’!”

Over the years, many NKI members moved outside of Israel, resettling mainly in New York and London. In March 2024, NKI’s website said it operated various Jewish establishments, including “synagogues, educational institutions, publishing houses, and organizations.”

NKI leader Moshe Hirsch served as an “adviser on Jewish affairs” to terror leader Yassir Arafat, who was responsible for suicide bombings on Israeli Jewish civilians.

Yasser Arafat was the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and is known by some as the “father of modern terrorism.” Under Arafat, the goal of the PLO was the violent destruction of Israel.

NKI claims they are the true representatives of the Jewish people because they “have not been affected…by the poison of Zionism.” They oppose the existence of the State of Israel “…because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law.”

NKI’s political views stem from its understanding of Jewish law. The group believes the exile of the Jews can end only with the arrival of the Messiah, and that human attempts to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel before that are forbidden.

In March 2012, NKI spokesperson Yisroel Dovid Weiss gave an interview with the anti-Israel news channel Al Jazeera English. When the reporter paraphrased [00:13:23] Weiss’s remarks as: “The State of Israel has no legitimacy. It shouldn’t exist at all,” Weiss confirmed [00:13:33] the reporter’s assessment.

NKI members frequently burn [00:00:15] Israeli flags at public demonstrations to “protest the actions and existence of the Zionist state.”

Members of NKI have also periodically organized protests outside the United Nations headquarters in New York, as well as in other American and European cities. They also participate [00:01:44] in rallies and protests organized by pro-terror anti-Israel activist groups.

They are often placed prominently at the front of the march, sometimes behind large signs calling for violence against Jews with euphemisms like “resistance.”

In 2009, NKI members went to Gaza to meet [00:08:24] with Hamas leaders and express support for the group’s terror attacks on Israel, with NKI’s Weiss saying: “It is your land. It is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity.”

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization founded in 1987 that is dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews. Since 2001, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at Israel and on October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 hostages, including children and the elderly.

On October 17, 2023, Weiss gave an interview with Al Jazeera English and justified the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Many Palestinian civilians, including women and children, participated in and supported the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. In some cases, Gazans who worked in the targeted Israeli communities gave intelligence to Hamas on where to strike.

In 2012, NKI members reportedly went to Lebanon to meet with Hezbollah senior members. That year, NKI leaders participated in a “Global March to Jerusalem” and laid a wreath at the tomb of a Hezbollah terrorist.

Hezbollah has long been known as an anti-Semitic and genocidal terror organization dedicated to destroying Israel.

In 2018, Weiss and other NKI members traveled to Lebanon to present a gift to the then-leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who once stated: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice I do not say the Israeli.”

In January 2022, NKI members met [00:02:34] with PIJ terrorists during an illegal visit to Jenin.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is a terror group “whose objective is the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state.” PIJ is backed by Iran and has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks.

NKI members have reportedly engaged in multiple physical confrontations with Israeli elected officials as well as Israeli soldiers. In 2010, a violent mob of NKI members attacked a member of the Israeli Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, when he arrived at a Jerusalem synagogue.

In previous years, NKI members had also attacked an Israeli minister and the chief rabbi.

In 2013, a violent NKI mob reportedly assaulted an Israeli soldier in the Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. The soldier’s attackers “beat him and threw oil, water and eggs at him before he managed to escape by ducking into an office, changing out of his uniform, and calling the police.”

The police officers who responded to the call were reportedly “pelted with stones” and called “Nazis.”

In December 2006, NKI members attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran. The “idea for the conference” was reportedly “inspired by” then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, and attracted a number of Holocaust deniers. David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), delivered a keynote address.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a notorious anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.

Weiss also spoke at the conference and accused Zionists of collaborating with Nazis.

The 1933 Haavara agreement between Zionist leaders and Nazi Germany permitted German Jews to escape Europe to Palestine. The agreement is often cited by anti-Semites to frame Zionists as Nazi collaborators.

Weiss alleged: “There should be Nuremberg trials on the actions of the Zionists. Not only that, but the irony is, they said ‘as more Jews die then we will get more land because the more the bloodshed, then the nations will feel guilty and the nations will give us land’...they are guilty just as the Nazis are. They collaborated with the Nazis.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights, as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.

On September 20, 2023, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, New York, NKI members met [00:00:03] with then-Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi to discuss “the difference between Zionism and Judaism.”

In 2014, NKI member Yitzhak Bergil was reportedly arrested by Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, and charged with spying on Israel for Iran. Bergil was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for espionage and assisting an enemy in wartime.

On September 24, 2007, NKI members met [00:00:10] with then-president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at the beginning of his visit to New York for a U.N. General Assembly session. Weiss blessed [00:01:30] Ahmadinejad and gave [00:01:46] him a gift as “a token of gratitude for the sweetness and love…extended to Jews and all mankind.”

Twitter:https://twitter.com/NetureiKarta

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/netureikarta2021/

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/neturei.karta/

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@2628342

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@NetureiKarta

Website:https://nkusa.org/