Zionism contrary to Torah teachings: American Rabbi

An American rabbi has censured Israel’s apartheid expansionist policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying such measures run counter to Judaism, Press TV reports.

“Judaism does not permit us to oppress other people, steal their land, or in any manner being uncompassionate to the people,” Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a New York-based activist and spokesman for anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, said in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Saturday.

He went on to say that Jews used to coexist peacefully with Muslims for hundreds of years before the advent of Zionism and subsequent creation of Israel in 1948.

“It (Israel) defies logic. It flies in the face of … righteousness and everything that the humanity calls for, by occupying Palestine,” Weiss pointed out.

The Haredi rabbi also described Israel as a purely illegitimate entity, saying, “They (Israelis) have stolen the land from people and they are thieves. The Torah does not give them the right, the Jewish law does not give them the right to the land.”

On March 21, Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, slammed the Israeli regime for its “ethnic cleansing” through forcing Palestinian citizens of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) out of their city.

Falk said Tel Aviv’s policies bear “unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.” More than 11,000 Palestinians have lost their right to live in East al-Quds since 1996 due to laws favoring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits, he noted.

Palestinians seek to create an independent state on the territories of the occupied West Bank, East al-Quds, and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

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