the justification of NETUREI KARTA

Last week, a demonstration took place at the International Court of Justice in The Hague by a number of members of the movement Neturei Karta (=watchmen of the city). A remarkable experience, because as ultra-Orthodox Jews, they speak out in no uncertain terms AGAINST the state of Israel. They consider the entire Zionist endeavor an ungodly provocation of the promised restoration of Israel. Israel went into exile because of unbelief, and only on the basis of faith will they be allowed to return to their land to form a nation there once again. That’s how it is written in the Torah (e.g., Deuteronomy 30) and that’s how it is written in the prophets (e.g., Ezekiel 20).

From the current Israel, therefore, no salvation is to be expected, they believe. More strongly, Israel has for decades been one of the most unsafe places in the world. They also point out that until 1948, the Jews had a relatively calm existence in Arab and other countries. This changed in an instant when the Jewish state was declared. Hatred and persecution have since become their portion.

They also decry the fact that Israel exercises so much aggression against the Palestinians. They believe that Theodor Herzl has done the (not only Jewish) world an extraordinarily bad service. All Jews should wait for the coming of Messiah instead of taking matters into their own hands and militantly establishing their own state. On the website of this movement you can read much more about their motives.

However much these orthodox Jews may draw the hatred and envy of their fellow countrymen upon themselves… they are, to a large extent, right.
The establishment of the Jewish state IS indeed not the restoration of Israel promised by God. More strongly: the current state will eventually be destroyed, as we know from the prophecies.
THAT there would, in the end time, again be something like an unbelieving Jewish state is clearly foretold. But that does not make this phenomenon (the beginning of) the promised restoration. Those are two ENTIRELY different matters.

Before too long, Babylon too will likely be rebuilt. But does that mean we should shout hallelujah as soon as this rebuilding begins? On the contrary, I would say. Read Revelation 17 and 18.

Isaiah writes (Isaiah 6:9–13) that when the time of Israel’s unbelief is finally over, the cities in the land will be destroyed. The farmland will be a wilderness. And there will be no living inhabitant to be found. Elsewhere we read that what remains of the people will have fled into the wilderness.
All of this is the setting for the dramatic end of the current state of Israel. Only THEN, and not before, will GOD gather the remnant of Israel from all the nations and bring them into the promised land.

Thus says the Lord YHWH:
WHEN I cleanse you from all your uncleannesses,
I will also cause the cities to be inhabited,
And the deserted places shall be rebuilt.
And the desolated land shall be tilled,
Instead of becoming a desolation
Before the eyes of everyone passing by.
And they will say,
“This land, that was desolated,
Has become as the garden of Eden!
And the cities that were ruined and deserted and demolished,
Are fortified—inhabited.”
THEN the nations that remain round about you
Shall know that I, YHWH,
Have rebuilt the demolished places
And have planted the desolated.
I, YHWH, speak, and I will do it.

Ezekiel 36:33–36 (CLNT)

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