Kahanists rail against government, ceasefire with Gaza
Kahanist movement in Israel commemorated the 29th anniversary of the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane on Thursday night.
By JEREMY SHARONRabbi Meir Kahane, leader of the "Kach" movement, speaking against terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, May 8, 1984(photo credit: NATI HARNIK/GPO)
Railing against the government, the judiciary, those described as Israel’s Arab and non-Orthodox Jewish “enemies,” and the recent ceasefire in Gaza, the senior leadership of the Kahanist movement in Israel commemorated the 29th anniversary of the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane on Thursday night.Several hundred far-right activists and Kahanist devotees gathered in a hall in Jerusalem to hear from some of Kahane’s close associates, such as Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who was the No. 2 candidate on the electoral list of Kahane’s Kach party in 1981, along with former MK Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel, both disciples of Kahane.Outside this Kahane extravaganza was a veritable market of Kahane literature and memorabilia, including his writings, far-right pamphlets, Kahane t-shirts, ceremonial medals, and of course stickers declaring that “Kahane was right!”The commemoration event took place in the shadow of the most recent election, when the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party ran alone for the Knesset and garnered some 80,000 seats, just over half the number of votes needed to pass the electoral threshold.Yet the various leaders and supporters of Otzma were in good spirits despite their electoral loss.Rabbi Yehudah Kroizer, dean of the Kahanist movement’s Jewish Idea Yeshiva, was unbowed by the political defeat, claiming that the party and its ideas are growing and would ultimately be successful.The assembled audience broke out into song as Ariel entered the hall, singing a traditional song for greeting a revered rabbi.Ariel gave a short address belittling the Knesset and its representatives, and said the Land of Israel should stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates while lamenting Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai and Gaza.Bentzi Gopstein, another far-right leader and head of the anti-miscegenation Lehava group, told the audience that he took pride in the Supreme Court banning him for running for the Knesset with Otzma due to racist sentiment he has expressed in the past.He said that the Supreme Court decision had been made “in the merit of the Reform [movement], may their name be obliterated,” and called on Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit to pay attention to this week’s Torah portion and the section where Abraham casts out Ishmael, a clear reference to Otzma’s policy of the transfer of Israel’s Arab population.Ben-Ari denounced the ceasefire reached this week following the conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, describing the cancellation of school and work in the south as shameful and the ceasefire a desecration of God’s name.“The government wants a long term ceasefire with Hamas as if there can be some kind of coexistence,” thundered Ben-Ari. “But whomever thinks Gaza and us can exist at the same time is a criminal and badly mistaken.”Although the Kahanists of Otzma failed to enter the Knesset in the September election, they were nevertheless close to entering the political arena in the April election when they were part of the Union of Right Wing Parties that included Bayit Yehudi, in large part due to the urging of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Twenty-nine years after Kahane’s death, the Kahanist movement is alive and well, and still knocking on the Knesset’s door, as a third election look closer than ever.
