Sunday, September 30, 2012

New York Rabbis Meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

This will be a tough one to put into the U.S. and Israeli narrative of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a Jew hater. And the narrative that all Jews present a united front against Ahmadinejad.

The Jews that Ahmadinejad met with are from the group known as Neturei Karta.  Neturei Karta oppose Zionism and call for a peaceful dismantling of the State of Israel, in the belief that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah.They live as a part of larger Chareidi communities around the globe.

In October 2005, Neturei Karta leader Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss issued a statement criticising Jewish attacks on  Ahmadinejad. Weiss wrote that Ahmadinejad's statements were not "indicative of anti-Jewish sentiments", but rather, "a yearning for a better, more peaceful world", and "re-stating the beliefs and statements of Ayatollah Khomeini, who always emphasized and practiced the respect and protection of Jews and Judaism."



(Via Lew Rockwell.com)

6 comments:

  1. Bob, buddy, you do know it's acceptable to both oppose a war with Iran and not defend a piece of human garbage like Ahmadinejad, right? I mean, at the end of the day the guy is nothing more than a statist. I get that you're probably posting this as a means deflate the case for war with Iran that is an anti-Semitic regime looking to kill Jews with its hypothetical nuclear weapons, but this is a piss poor means for doing so--it allows war proponents to paint genuine opponents as "useful idiots" for what is a truly odious regime in Tehran.

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    1. I don't think RW is saying Amberdinnerjacket is a nice guy, just that he's not the Hitler-Satan the MSM and Israel/Likud make him out to be.

      We do know for sure that he's been misquoted consistently on the "off the map" statement.

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  2. Assuming the meeting actually happened and is not being generally reported, EPC is doing the right thing by publishing the piece. The piece engages in no defense of the president of Iran, just takes note that he is not without his defenders even among the Jews.

    Have to give Ahmadinejad credit for leveraging his perceived infamy in the West for a major PR blitz during his trip to the U.N. He certainly doesn't seem like a guy who would start a thermonuclear war with Israel or anyone else just for the satisfaction of killing infidels, even Jewish ones.

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    1. But these Jews are not proponents of the state of Israel, so who cares? Some, actually most, Jews want their state to continue existing. If these were Jews of the "let's let Israel continue to exist" camp, this would be an actual story.

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  3. The reason the Rabbis gave for the presentation was for standing up to the zionist.

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  4. Bob, the Neturai Karta are not part of a "larger Charedi community." They are a few hundred members who are pretty much despised by the actual Charedi community. I openly espouse a very skeptical view of the western narrative of Iran as a threat to the entire world, or even Israel. But these nutjobs are not a good example of some sort of widespread sympathy. There are hard-core anti-Zionists (like Satmar Chassidim) who actually are not just part of a larger Charedi community, but are extremely numerous, to boot. But they would never, EVER meet with a murderer like Arafat, or even someone like Ahmadinejad. It would never happen.

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