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Kahanists are a Danger to Israelis and Israeli Democracy

Addendum, March 4, 2019: We invite you to consider adding your name to this statement of solidarity, which will be accepting signatures until March 28, the deadline for Israeli organizations to approach the Central Elections Committee of the Knesset. Clicking this link will take you to a New Israel Fund (NIF) sign-on web page. NIF is coordinating this effort, whose co-sponsors currently include Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, as well as Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, J Street, the Jewish Labor Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women, Partners for Progressive Israel, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and the Union for Reform Judaism. 

Following the Otzma Yehudit agreement, eight organizations call on the American Jewish Community to affirm: Kahanists have no place in the Knesset.

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. This is dangerous and deeply concerning. Otzma Yehudit is the latest iteration of a political party based on teachings of racist demagogue Meir Kahane.

For decades, the consensus in Israel was that these racist extremist organizations should have no place in the Knesset. 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.

Our organizations do not advocate for or against any candidate or party in any election. We stand together for the principles enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Kahanism, empowered in government, represents a clear and present danger to those values.

Kahane’s party, Kach, was banned from the Knesset in 1988, was outlawed as a terrorist organization in Israel in 1994, and still appears on the US State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

Modern day Kahanists are working to divide Israeli society by stoking racial fears. They seek to strip all non-Jewish Israelis of basic rights; many encourage violence toward Arabs and LGBTQ Israelis. These Jewish supremacist organizations often use incitement to violence to promote their racist agenda. That’s why the US State Department, the EU and the Canadian government all list Kahanist organizations as terrorist groups.

Today’s Kahanists have been convicted numerous times for support for terror organizations and incitement to racism. Michael Ben-Ari, a leader of Otzma Yehudit and candidate for Knesset, was denied a visa to enter the US due to the State Department’s “prerogative to ban terrorists from entering the country.” 

As Americans, we have seen the devastating effects of elected officials embracing white nationalist groups. In America, deadly right-wing extremism poses a clear and present danger to our democratic society. In Israel, it is Kahanists — and the political mainstream that embraces them — that pose the most direct threat to Israel’s democratic fiber.

We call on our colleagues in the American Jewish community and Jewish organizations to stand for democracy and equality and join us in affirming that Kahanists have no place in the Knesset.

Signed,

New Israel Fund

T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

Partners for Progressive Israel

Americans for Peace Now

J Street

National Council of Jewish Women

Reconstructing Judaism

Ameinu

The Reconstructionist Network