The United States is set to remove the radical Jewish right-wing Kach Movement from its list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), the Associated Press reported on Sunday.
The now-inactive movement was banned from running for elections to the Knesset in 1988 due to inciting racism against Israeli-Arabs. It was banned outright in Israel in 1994.
Kach was led by former MK Rabbi Meir Kahane until his assassination in 1990 and is considered by some to be linked to MK Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party.
As of 2022, Kach is still designated as a terrorist group by Israel, the European Union, Canada and Japan, in addition the US.
In addition, Washington will also reportedly remove the Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, an umbrella of several jihadist terrorist groups based in Gaza and across the Middle East. The council, which included the al-Qaeda Iraqi branch, was disbanded in 2006 and replaced by the Islamic State of Iraq.
The news of the removal of the inactive terrorist groups comes amid speculation that the Biden administration is mulling over the possibility of removing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds Force from the FTO list as part of the Iran nuclear deal negotiations.
However, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter said in April that US President Joe Biden “shares the view” that members of the IRGC Quds Force are terrorists.