Members of the radical ultra-Orthodox sect Neturei Karta rallied Sunday outside the Polish Embassy in Israel in support of that country's controversial Holocaust law, which criminalizes accusing the Polish nation of crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
The law, enacted on March 1, has been lambasted by Israel, which says it distorts history, and by the United States, which expressed concern that the law curtails freedom of speech and academic inquiry.
Neturei Karta, formed in 1935, is a small sect that opposes Zionism and calls for the dismantling of the State of Israel, in the belief that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah. The radical sect does not hold the Poles or even Nazi Germany responsible for the Holocaust. Some 400 Neturei Karta families live in the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, and 200 additional families are scattered between Beit Shemesh, New York and London.
In a letter sent Sunday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish President Andrzej Duda, Neturei Karta claimed that Israel and the Zionist movement have been "misappropriating the memory of the Holocaust" and have been "engaging in spiritual destruction" since Israel's inception.
The letter also protested the state's marking of Holocaust Remembrance Day, and called for the banning of any Israeli Air Force flyovers in the skies above the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, such as the one held in 2003, saying this was a "provocation" against other nations.
The letter also claimed that Zionism appropriates the Holocaust for its own purposes, and expressed its support for the Polish law. However, the signatories to the letter qualified their statement, saying that if some nations do decide to try Nazi war criminals, they would not oppose them.
