Top Haredi rabbi says Zionism brought ‘disasters’ upon Jewish people, ‘made Arabs hate us’

Newly released footage shows Rabbi Dov Lando, spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah faction of the United Torah Judaism party, launching into a tirade against Zionism, saying Israel might have been better off had it never been established and that “Zionism made Arabs hate us.”

“I don’t know what would have happened if there had been no state,” Lando says in a recording of a conversation with several rabbis at his home about a year and a half ago, published by Channel 12. “If there had been a state and the UN had ruled here, the situation would have been excellent.”

He adds that “it would have been quite good if the Arabs ruled here today,” and says Zionism “brought the physical disasters – not just the spiritual ones – upon the Jewish people.”

Lando also sharply criticizes religious Zionists, many of whom serve in the IDF as opposed to ultra-Orthodox men, saying, “They go and get killed for what they call the defense of the people and the land.” He argues that their rabbis teach them “a distorted Torah.”

Of secular Israelis, he says, “They have no connection to Judaism at all. It’s terrible.”