Kahanism

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Kahanism (Hebrew: כהניזם) is a religious Zionist ideology based on the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach party in Israel.

[2][3] In 2022, it was removed from the U.S. terror blacklist due to "insufficient evidence" of the group's ongoing activity, but it remains a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity.

As a result of the Israeli political crisis, then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to gain extra seats by appealing to Kahanist voters by making a deal with the Jewish Home to have them run on a joint list with Otzma Yehudit as the Union of Right Wing Parties.

[18] Otzma Yehudit eventually saw parliamentary representation in 2021, when Itamar Ben-Gvir won a seat as part of a joint list with the Religious Zionist Party.

[7] In November 2022, after a memorial event for Kahane attended by Ben-Gvir, the U.S. State department hosted a press briefing, saying, "Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent.

Kahanism's ideological tenets of violent expansionism, extreme racism, and ultranationalist messaging have been cited as proof that it is a form of Jewish fascism.

The Kach party was banned from running for the Knesset in 1988, while the two Kahanist movements formed after Kahane's assassination in 1990[34] were ruled illegal terrorist organizations in 1994 and the groups subsequently disbanded.

In 2001, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called the official Kahanist website a hate site espousing prejudiced views in which "Arabs generally and Palestinians in particular are vilified.

[2][3] In 2022, it was removed from the U.S. terror blacklist due to "insufficient evidence" of the group's ongoing activity in the most recent five-yearly review, but it remains a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity.

[4] The deadliest Jewish terrorist attack occurred when Baruch Goldstein, supporter of Kach, shot and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, and wounded another 150, at the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, in 1994.

[41] Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the attack, calling Goldstein a "degenerate murderer", "a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism".

In October 1982, Yoel Lerner, a member of Kahane's Kach, attempted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in order to rebuild the Temple Mount site.

He hoped for the restoration of the ancient temple in Jerusalem, the exclusive right of Jews to settle on the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the creation of a state based on biblical law.

"[47] Lerner had previously served a three-year sentence for heading a group that plotted to overthrow the government and establish a state based upon religious law.

[50] In 2002, a Kahanist group known as "Revenge of the Toddlers" claimed responsibility for a bombing attack at Tzur Baher, an East Jerusalem secondary school for Arab boys, that wounded seven.