Members of the small, isolated but vociferous ultra-Hareidi fringe group Neturei Karta have expressed support for Islamist Ra'ad Salah, an Arab citizen of Israel who is under arrest in Britain.
An internal Neturei Karta email describes Salah’s arrest shortly after he entered Britain, and the protest undertaken by local Muslims "with the support of Chevrat Darkei Shalom London,” a Neturei Karta group in the English capital.
“The honorable Sheikh Ra’ad is one of the leaders of the Palestinians in the Holy Land, and always arouses the anger of Zionists because he refuses to accept their conquest and their filthy takeover,” the message said. “The honorable Sheikh is especially mindful that the Zionists must not harm the places that are sacred to Muslims, and has demonstrated much about this matter, and so has been placed in jail several times by the Zionists...“
"Surrender is the Torah solution" -- Neturei Karta demonstrator/ Arutz Sheva photo by Ezra Halevi (file)/
Salah was arrested in Britain because of “the great Zionist pressure on the government of England” to do so, and his arrest constitutes a dangerous “challenge to the nations,” Neturei Karta opined.
The email unabashedly relates how Neturei Karta members joined Muslim protests against the arrest and were warmly welcomed, to the chagrin of “the Zionists and their partners” who were outraged by the “treason” against them and their “unclean and dying state.”
Neturei Karta members have met with Salah in the Land of Israel on several occasions, the message noted, and he has always received them with "great friendship and honor and assured them he has nothing against Jews, only against the Zionists".
Neturei Karta is the extreme anti-Zionist hareidi-hassidic group. Small in number, but often confused with other hassidic sects due to their hassidic clothing, It is in order to prevent this confusion that Arutz Sheva decided to post this article.
Neturei Karta was actually placed under a “cherem” – a religious boycott – by other ultra hareidi-hassidic streams after its members prayed for PLO leader Yasir Arafat.
Its members have met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad . This, too led to a call by Israel's Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger to ex-communicate the group. It also reportedly led the wife of the Neturei Karta leader photographed with Ahmedinejad, Moshe Aryeh Friedman, to leave him.