Abdul-Hadi Palazzi’s Italian Muslim Association would be more accurate inverse of Neturei Karta.

George, Palestine was no wasteland at all, there was a vibrant Palestinian Arab population, including Jews (who were classified as a religion), Christians and Muslims. In fact, Al-Jazeera ran a documentary a few days ago about Haifa in the 1920s and it covered the cultural movement in Palestine, including poets, writers and newspapers. Beirut was also a centre of Arabic literature, a well developed press and the home of many different movements and ideas. Same was the case in Syria. The Sham (the Levant) region was vibrant. OP hasn’t a clue, because, well, she is a small Englander, and hears snippets here and there and then reaches an opinion. You know what they say about a little knowledge. It would be similar to an Arab, in Beirut, pontificating how London was in the 1920s, while not knowing a word of English or opening a book of English literature. In other words, she is prejudiced.

Ottoman Palestine may have been underutilized wasteland, but it wasn’t a desert in climatic terms (except for the Negev, which is still desert even today).

The Ottomans probably neglected Palestine (along with the other Arab lands) because their empire’s centre of gravity was in the same place as that of its Byzantine predecessor — in the Balkans and Anatolia.

As for the Palestinian people, before 1948 they would have identified themselves as Muslims (or Christians as the case may be), or by their home city. They would have been unlikely to identify themselves by region, but if they had, they would have regarded themselves as “Southern Syrians”.

Palestinian nationalism was born out of the resistance to Zionism, and without Israel there wouldn’t be a Palestinian nation. Similarly, German nationalism would have been far weaker without Napoleon, and Zionism itself would not have become so militaristic were it not for the Holocaust.

I agree it is no concern of any community or group to impose on the other what they should believe or practice.

At the same time, NK do indeed represent the opinion of Europe’s religious Jewry’s on Zionism at its advent, this includes all shades of orthodoxy. NK document the opinion of prominent Rabbis on this issue.

That being said, opinions change with social and political context and now many Jews, for whatever reason, have accepted to live with Zionism or at least accept its presence, for the cultural and even economic backing of their religious institutions and schools. At the end, Zionism struck a middle deal with the religious element, who were at first at odds with Zionism, similarly how other secular movements have struck a deal with religious elements in the Arab world. The state sponsorship of cultural Islamic schools and madrasas in countries such as Egypt and Syria, has ensured the support of the religious circles. However, if you go back to the fall of the Ottoman state, many of the religious considered these secular developments as blasphemy. See for example the opinions of Shaikh-ul-Islam Mustafa Sabri in his Arabic writings, they were damning of the cultural movements and ideas that circulated in his time, but by today’s standards these very same ideas are accepted socially and no one would blink an eye.

Hoever the point remains, judging by traditional scholarship much of the opinions of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and other Azharites would be viewed as a heresy by medievel standards, just as was the case with Rasheed Rida and Muhammad Abdu in their time.

When Palestine was colonised in 1948, the scholars of Palestine declared anyone who makes peace over any part of Palestine as an apostate. Today the ‘Ulama of Palestine are part of a Wakf funded by the PA and good as sanctioned and funded by them, at the same time.

Religious attitudes may change, but by tradition NK are authentic to orthodox Judaism. Numbers don’t count. Didn’t one of the early Muslims say that the community of truth can be one, if you were upon it?

“even turning up at a Holocaust denial conference in Iran. Most Muslims would baulk at that. Can anyone imagine how Jews see it?”

Firstly. it was called “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust”, and it was not a “Holocaust denial” conference.

Secondly, here are excerpts of what Neturei Karta had to say about it:

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss “I mean somebody has to be, I think, either very very embittered or a person who doesn’t want to open his mind to study, to say that the Jewish people weren’t exterminated. The fact is that there were millions and millions of Jewish people living in Europe before World War II. Poland, the statistics say around 3 million, and Hungary there was over half a million, maybe close to a million and you go through Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Ukraine, they were all full of Jewish people, full of Jewish communities and today they don’t exist. And almost nobody tries to refute that. It would be ridiculous to refute it because the fact is, the Jewish people were there and now they are not there.

Rabbi Aharon Cohen: “There is no doubt whatsoever, that during World War II there developed a terrible and catastrophic policy and action of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jewish People, confirmed by innumerable eyewitness survivors and fully documented again and again. I personally was spared the worst effects of the War because I was living in England which thankfully was not occupied by Nazi Germany. However, I and many many others lost countless friends and relatives who perished under the Nazi rule by intentional murder and genocide. Three million Jews in Poland, more than half a million in Hungary, many tens or hundreds of thousands in Russia, Slovakia, France, Belgium, Holland and more. The figure of six million is regularly quoted. One may wish to dispute this actual figure, but the crime was just as dreadful whether the millions (and there were millions) of victims numbered six million, five million or four million. The method of murder is also irrelevant, whether it was by gas chamber (and there were eyewitnesses to this), firing squads or whatever. The evil was the same. It would be a terrible affront to the memory of those who perished to belittle the guilt of the crime in any way.”

I imagine that Jews (aught to) see it as representative of the voice of History.

References: http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-WeissSpeech.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InternationalConferencetoReviewtheGlobalVisionofthe_Holocaust

As for those olives etc - precious little. It was only when the Jews moved in and put the land to work that most of the Arabs came to this pretty barren area.