Ultra-Orthodox Group Offers to Join Palestine Exile Government
A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who consider Israel’s existence a sacrilege offered Sunday to join a proposed Palestinian government-in-exile.
“We have always identified with the Palestinian cause, which is our cause,” Moshe Hirsch, spiritual leader of the Neturei Karta group, said in a statement. “We have often expressed our desire to annex our religious neighborhoods to the forthcoming Palestinian state that will eventually be established in the Holy Land,” he said.
Hirsch said he would “gladly serve in the position of minister of Jewish affairs” in a future Palestinian government-in-exile.
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council met in Baghdad, Iraq, last week to consider plans to form such a government. The council referred the proposal to a special committee for further study.
Neturei Karta, which has a membership of about 3,000 in Jerusalem, believes that a Jewish state should be formed only after the coming of the Messiah.
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