Tag: American Jewish Committee

Kahane called for Arabs to be expelled from Israel, and his Kach party had a history of harassing Israeli Arabs. Kahane served time in prison both in the United States and Israel. “This dangerous phenomenon will pass because no public figure or member of Knesset supports it,” Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir once said about Kahane, according to Haaretz. But several major American Jewish groups, as well as Israeli public figures, are opposing the move as an endorsement of the extremism once rejected by previous Israeli governments. But what Prime Minister Netanyahu has done, because he’s desperate, because he’s in an increasingly tight political race, is open the door to evil.” A chorus of centrist and liberal American Jewish organizations opposed the merger this week. “This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, keen to shore up his electoral position, orchestrated the unification of the extreme right-wing party Otzma Yehudit (‘Jewish Power’) with the National Union so that it could enter the Knesset in a consolidated right-wing bloc,” read a statement by eight groups, including the New Israel Fund, J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Reconstructionist movement. “We are outraged that right-wing political parties and their leadership have reversed course and opened the door for Kahanists to enter into the Israeli political mainstream.” No major right-wing Jewish groups have condemned the merger. “We understand what Prime Minister Netanyahu did, and he did it to have ministers of the national religious and national union parties in his coalition.” Most American Jewish groups also opposed Kahane’s activities in the United States and Israel in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. That same year, with Kahane’s party poised to win more than 10 seats in elections, it was banned from running due to its racist platform — at the urging of Likud. Regardless, Ben-Ari will only be elected this year if his party wins enough votes to have five seats in Knesset.