Ahmadinejad spurned Neturei Karta?

Vos iz Neias, a Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jewish website, reports:

VIN News has learned from high-ranking Iranian officials that a New York meeting between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and members of the radical anti-Zionist Neturei Karta group was canceled at-the behest of Ahmadinejad himself.

Neturei Karta members reportedly were scrambling to secure a meeting with Ahmadinejad himself during his recent visit to New York for the U.N. meeting. Hope seemed "lost" until the group actually succeeded in arranging for a face-to-face with the firebrand head of state-only to have that meeting suddenly canceled, by no less than Ahmadinejad himself.

According to VIN's sources, it is said that the Iranian president has lost total interest in the Neturai Karta, and views them as zealots with no serious following within the Jewish community.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta confirmed to VIN News that their group did not meet last week with Ahmadinejad, but declined to provide a reason.

Two years ago, members of the group scored international headlines, and a fierce firestorm to match, when they appeared at a Holocaust-denial conference in Teheran to publicly and literally embrace Ahmadinejad. The group has also met Ahmadinejad in 2007 while visiting New York.

Meanwhile nowadays, famous Austrian Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, the formerly high-ranking official who facilitated that infamous event, has done teshuvah [repentance ]. As described in an exclusive interview with VIN, the activist no longer agrees with the NK's philosophy, and believes what most said about it for decades: that it is a dangerously foolhardy calculation for a handful of extremists to claim international Torah Jewish representation, especially on such a critical issue as the safety and security of fellow Jews-not to mention a humiliating chilul Hashem [desecration of God's name.]

Rabbi Friedman is reputedly using his connections and influence in high ranks of the International Community places to now thwart, not facilitate, publicity-heavy meetings between members of the group.

I have no idea if it is true but it sounds semi-plausible. The reason given is a little strange; what does Ahmadinejad care if NK is considered fringe or not? They serve his purposes either way as Jewish cover for his desire to destroy Israel.

Anyway, this story does show that religious Jews can't stand the anti-Israel NK as a whole and that they represent essentially no one in the Orthodox Jewish community.

I am reminded of an old posting of mine, where an avowed "anti-Zionist" idiot wrote an article against Neturei Karta because they were just too Jewy for him.

(h/t Andre)