About 300 Jews gathered in Ramallah on Thursday to take part in the 72nd anniversary International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The commemorative day was established by the UN and ceremonies are held in the United Nations offices at Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi on November 29 each year to mark the anniversary of Resolution 181. 

Resolution 181, commonly known as the Partition Plan, was a proposal by the United Nations in 1947 which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate that would have created a Palestinian State. Ironically, the resolution was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine but rejected by Arab leaders and states.

Last week’s ceremony was held in the  Mukata presidential headquarters in Ramallah. The Jewish attendees were generally of two types: secular left-wing extremists and ultra-Orthodox from the Neturei Karta sect. 

The Anti-Defamation League identifies Neturei Karta as an anti-Zionist group that claims to“pray for the peaceful dismantlement of the state of Israel.”

“Founded in 1938, ‘Neturei Karta’ (Aramaic for ‘Guardians of the Gates’) opposes the contemporary state of Israel because it does not believe that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination and because only God can restore Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel by bringing the Messiah. NK has a very extreme agenda and has regularly aligned with international anti-Semites, Islamic extremists and groups that advocate violence against Israel. In recent years, leaders of Neturei Karta have met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on several occasions in New York and Tehran, as well as leaders of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon…Neturei Karta leaders have even called on the Jewish community to dialogue with Hamas and apologize for ‘stealing their land.’”

 Fatah (PLO) Central Committee Secretary-General Jibril Rajoub addressed the crowd.

“I hope that my family, my people and the Palestinian leadership – which I myself am part of – will realize what the presence of hundreds of Israelis [in Ramallah] on the anniversary of November 29 means,” Rajoub said. “This is a notable message that there is an Israeli partner [for peace]. I [call upon] the Israelis [to] understand us well. Many Palestinians see [former Kahane Chai head] Baruch Marzel and [Transportation Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, [as Israel’s representatives] and these faces do not represent you.”

Rajoub has served multiple terms in Israeli prisons for terrorist activities which included throwing a hand grenade at IDF soldiers. Rajoub’s speech was well-received by the Jewish audience.

Iris Segev, a member of the Parents Circle Family Forum, a movement that brings together Israeli and Palestinian families who had lost their loved ones to the conflict, called on Allah to help create a Palestinian state in the place Israel currently exists.

 “I wish that Allah will bless the Palestinian people, that you will gain your long-awaited independence as soon as possible and that peace will come,” she said.

Segev’s speech received a standing ovation. Her son, Nimrod, was killed in the Second Lebanon War.

The speech of Rabbi Meir Hirsh, a leader in Neturei Karta, was not received as well. 

“Not only are the settlements in violation of international law, but the whole Zionist State in direct violation of all international laws. The only way to stop the occupation is by way of a global economic boycott on the Zionist state.’

‘This just claim derives from the command by Allah, ‘You shall seek justice,’ in which we are commanded to be fair to both Jews and other peoples. The Zionists and their leaders have no relation to the Jewish people.”

“We despise the Zionist entity,” Hirsh said. “[Zionists] have no right to represent the Jewish people or speak in its name. “He said that “the name ‘Israel’ that [the Zionists] are using is a falsification like no other. The Zionists and their leaders do not belong to the Jewish people.”

Some of the left-wing Israelis began to boo Hirsch yelling, “We are the Jews. He is not a Jew”.

Members of the Neturei Karta delegation responded by calling the left-wing activists “filthy leftists” and “liars”. One Neturei Karta member shouted at the left-wing Israelis, “Who do you think you are, filthy leftists? Liars! You did the massacre, you!”

Perhaps the greatest irony was when the Palestinian organizers stepped in to try to make peace between the two groups of Jews, calling for them to be “civil.”

Hirsh ended his speech by calling to “implement peace and solidarity, justice and fairness among all human beings, to worship Allah together, Inshallah (Allah willing)l.”

Last month, while over 450 Gazan rockets fell on Israel, a video was published showing Hirsh praying for “nullification of the Zionist-terrorist-regime. The lands, which are all Palestinian, should be returned to the nation of Palestine.” Towards the end of the video, he said: “The world should serve Allah under one name.”