It is ironic that The Jewish Home is being condemned for including Dr. Michael Ben-Ari’s Otzma Yehudit party in its fifth and eighth Knesset spots. Where was the outcry when Ben-Ari served in the Knesset in 2009-2013? Why the sudden fit of rage?
And where is the outcry over the refusal of the new party of generals led by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid to rule out forming a future government with pro-PLO Arab MK terrorist sympathizers?
People are calling Otzma Yehudit Nazis because its leaders oppose intermarriage and speak of expelling Israel’s enemies – as if there’s any equivalence between expelling Arabs from Israel and murdering Jews in Germany, none of whom were exactly blowing up school buses and claiming the Germans stole their land.
Those who condemn Otzma Yehudit, The Jewish Home, and National Union are likely causing a million Israelis to consider voting for the trio. After all, the average Israeli has absolutely no problem with speaking about the expulsion of hostile Arabs – not that Ben-Ari does much of that at this stage in his political career.
It seems as if G-d has sent these dimwits to put Kahane’s words into Ben-Ari’s mouth – like Bilaam’s donkey. The very words Ben-Ari is so frightened of uttering these days are the very words that could propel him to unimaginable electoral popularity.
This could only be G-d’s hand at work. First, Bibi heavily pressures The Jewish Home and National Union to merge with the “Kahanists,” then the left reminds everyone of Kahane’s forbidden ideas.
The very same foolish politicians and headlines created “Kahane” in the first place, making him more popular with every headline condemning him. They made the foolish mistake of attacking and maligning Kahane, not realizing that the average Israeli loved Kahane’s message and rejected the nonsense in the press.
It’s all now resurfacing. I don’t know if Otzma Yehudit and The Jewish Home deserve this gift, but it appears to be snowballing at a pace that may likely bring about the greatest nightmare for the Israeli left and the Arabs other than Kahane himself being resurrected.
This time, the “Kahanists” appear to have the immunity of Likud – the very same Likud that banded together with the left to ban Kahane in 1988, when Kach was on the verge of becoming Israel’s third largest party, with polls predicting 10-15 seats for it.
If anyone should be outraged, it should be the supporters of Otzma Yehudit who will be forced to vote for The Jewish Home despite the fact that The Jewish Home and National Union bloc has only given them the fifth and eighth spots when Otzma Yehudit comprises, alone, a minimum of 2-4 seats, according to most polls that were taken prior to the controversial merger, while National Union and The Jewish Home only polled between 1-2 seats.
Let’s not forget that The Jewish Home together with the National Union Party remained in the government these last few years despite Bibi’s freeze on “settlements” and his refusal to properly hit back at Hamas.
I understand what troubles the left. They want anyone but Bibi to be elected. Why – I am not fully certain. It’s unlikely that Bibi will have the courage to turn down the Trump deal.
But if Otzma Yehudit and Zehut succeed in gaining enough seats to force Bibi’s hand, there actually might be hope for Israel, after all.
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Is ‘Kahanism’ Racist?
Editor’s note: The following derives from Rabbi Meir Kahane’s last book, “Israel: Revolution or Referendum?,” published in 1990.
Before going into the exact legal moves for and against Kach, one should deal with the truly obscene charge that Kach and Kahane are racists…. “Racist?” Truly outrageous, truly obscene. Does Kach see Arabs or any non-Jews as being genetically or racially different from Jews? Does it deal with Jews and non-Jews on the basis of color or blood?
Does it do what the Nazi and apartheid South African regimes did and do – make a certain class of people permanently inferior? Or does Kach say that the Arab, or any gentile, who sincerely converts according to halacha is the same as the Jew? As Meir Kahane!
The difference between Jew and gentile, according to Kach, is not a racial one, but a religious one. And it is not a distinction that originated with Kach, but with Torah Judaism! It is Judaism that distinguishes and discriminates between Jew and non-Jew, though not because of racism, but because there is a spiritual difference between the two, a difference that disappears the moment the gentile becomes a Jew. That is racism?
Does not Kach have numerous former gentiles who have converted to Judaism and who are enthusiastic members and supporters? Does not Kach have as one of its members and supporters the convert to Judaism who is the former grandson of the vicious Moslem Jew-hater, Jaabri, former Mayor of Hebron? Did I not attend his wedding and dance with him, this man who was born an Arab Moslem and converted to Judaism and is now a Jew as any
other, in Kach’s eyes?
And does not Kach offer the Arabs a choice of remaining in Eretz Yisrael with all their personal
rights but without national ones? And is this not Judaism? And is this not ultimately Zionism, the Zionism that defined the State of Israel as a Jewish state in the Declaration of Independence? … In the end, those who called for a Jewish state and who framed laws that
discriminated against non-Jews (the Law of Return and the Jewish National Fund) did so because they intended that non-Jews would never control the Jewish state. Is this racism?
