Brian Naughton Neturei Karta Members at a Protest in London

Whilst the common perception of the bitter conflict between the state of Israel and those who seek a separate Palestinian state, sometimes in tandem with a viewpoint that Israel should not exist at all, may be that it is simply a clash of religions, Islam and Judaism, the meeting between Ismail Haniya, the Prime Minister of the Hamas administration in Gaza, and representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta may have caused those who consider that to be the case to reassess their opinion. To many people the terms Zionism and Judaism may be interchangeable. They both amount to the same thing. The state of Israel. Yet to members of Neturei Karta that is simply not the case. Being adherents to the Haredi school of Judaism their belief is that the state of Israel will have no legitimacy in their religion unless it has been created in order to mark the coming of the Messiah. To them the current Israeli state is a product of the mainly secular Zionist movement, that has its roots in the strongly anti-Semitic Europe of the late 1800s. It may have been founded primarily as a homeland where Jews could settle free of persecution but its existence is not compatible with the Jewish faith . And so, perhaps guided by the not unpopular concept that our enemy's enemy must be our friend, four members of Neturei Karta were among a group of some 200 supporters of the Palestinian cause who made their way to Gaza on Wednesday, avoiding travel restrictions imposed on the territory by the Israeli authorities by entering via Egypt. Another member of the group who traveled to Gaza, as the London Times confirms, was the British politician George Galloway. The group received a warm welcome from Ismail Haniya, who reiterated that his organization's opposition to Israel was not based on a dislike of Jews as a people, but rather was motivated by opposition to the Zionist movement which had shaped the policies of the the current state of Israel since it effectively came into being in 1948. Neturei Karta is an Aramaic name and translates into English as "Guardians of the City". One of its members who traveled to Gaza was Rabbi Yisroel Weiss and upon arrival he had this message for his hosts:

We feel your suffering, we cry your cry. It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity

A statement that drew the following response from Prime Minister Haniya, which was reported by the BBC :

Our problem is with the occupation, that stems from the Zionist ideology and its desire to disperse all the Palestinians. Those religious figures that express their objection to the siege, the aggression and the crimes - we can't help but respect them and for their beliefs and their culture

Apart from Israel itself, where its communities are mostly found in Jerusalem, Neturei Karta also has a sizable presence in London and New York, with smaller numbers scattered around other North American cities. Although, at the very most, the movement is thought to number just a few thousand. The appearance of the men who made their way to Gaza had its own significance as well. They wore their hair in side-locks, sported long, bushy beards and donned black wide-brimmed hats and black coats. All of which are meant to reflect their observance of the traditional Jewish culture and religion. As for Hamas, they do of course remain an organization deemed to be a terrorist one by many of the powers in the West. And Hezbollah, whose base is in Lebanon, are regarded in a similar way by many of those same powers. But that has not stopped Neturei Karta attending conferences with representatives of both in the past. They also enjoyed a cordial relationship with Yasser Arafat, the long time Palestinian leader who died in 2004 and whose views on Israel's right to exist did moderate considerably in the latter years of his life. Equally controversial has been their embrace with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when they encountered him at a Holocaust denial conference in 2006. However it is said that the attitude of the Haredi, or alternatively Chareidi, towards the Holocaust is really not best described as denial but rather as a belief that it was some form of divine act that cannot truly be explained. The visit to Gaza of the four members of Neturei Karta, who represent only a small section of the Orthodox/ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, is also interesting in that it coincided with clashes in Jerusalem this week between Israeli police and members of the Orthodox community. Those riots were sparked by the authorities' arrest of an Orthodox woman, who was suspected of starving one of her children. Charges denied by the Orthodox community who claim that the woman is merely raising the child within the religious tradition. But the issue should be seen in a wider context of long running tensions between the religious and the secular elements of Israeli society. In particular, anger on the part of secular Israelis at what they see as the willingness of many of their Orthodox counterparts to accept financial support from a state they not only refuse to serve in any way but actually do not believe should exist.