kahanism

Rabbi Meir Kahane. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Are voters about to send Kahanists back to the Knesset?

If the polls are accurate, more than 140,000 voters will vote the Kahanists back into the Knesset in next week’s election. Yet the desire for a pure Jewish state long ago moved from the margins of Israeli society to the mainstream. By Ron Cahlili One week before Israel’s national election, nearly every major poll shows the Kahanist party Otzma…

By +972 Magazine September 11, 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a government handout photo, taken near Israel's southern order with Egypt, March 7, 2019. (Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/Handout)

These elections are a choice between resignation and despair

Four years ago, the prospect of another Netanyahu government meant perpetuating the status quo. This time, the opposition is offering the status quo — and Netanyahu something far worse. The short distance between resignation and despair is the difference between knowing that things aren’t going to get any better and the fear that they could…

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man March 19, 2019

Netanyahu rival Benny Gantz delivers a statement to the media in Tel Aviv, February 28, 2019. (Flash90)

Why Benny Gantz is more dangerous than the Kahanists

Despite taking pride in bombing Gaza to the Stone Age, Benny Gantz is still portrayed by the Israeli media as a dove who wants to end the conflict. Nothing could be further from the truth. By Tom Mehager The partnership between the ruling Likud party and the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party is a prime example of how racism has…

By Haokets March 10, 2019

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen in the Knesset plenum ahead of the vote on the Jewish Nation-State Law, July 18, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

What will it take for Israel’s right-wing voters to say enough?

A small group of right-wing voters could tip the balance and lead to a change of government in Israel. Who are these voters, what do they care about, and would a Kahanist party in the Knesset be a step too far? Until one week ago, it looked unlikely that Benjamin Netanyahu could lose an election.…

By Dahlia Scheindlin March 1, 2019

Kahanist Michael Ben-Ari gives a speech to right-wing demonstrators who are protesting an event commemorating the Palestinian Nakba at Tel Aviv University, May 14, 2012.

How to stop Kahanists from taking over

Twenty-five years after a follower of Meir Kahane massacred Palestinian worshipers in Hebron, Netanyahu is basing his future coalition on a Kahanist party. Now Israelis will have to decide between apartheid and a future of hope and equality. By Raluca Ganea Reality is often too complex to draw clear lines between cause and effect. But occasionally, a single act…

By +972 Magazine February 26, 2019

Members of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party Bentzi Gopstein (left) Michael Ben Ari (center) and Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir (right) seen in Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem, March 12, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Israel’s fascist sideshow takes center stage

For the first time in over 30 years, a proper Kahanist party could be entering the Knesset. But is the rise of a party that advocates for Jewish supremacy, theocracy, and ‘total war’ as unprecedented as the outcry has suggested? The last week has been an eventful one in the annals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dalliances with the…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland February 24, 2019

A participant in the Jerusalem pride parade holds up a sign in solidarity with LGBTQ Palestinians, Jerusalem, August 3, 2017. (Activestills.org)

Two years after stabbing, 20,000 participate in J’lem pride march

Police arrest man carrying a knife, two years after 16-year-old Shira Banki was stabbed to death at the Jerusalem pride march. Over 20,000 people took part in the annual Jerusalem pride march on Thursday afternoon, two years after 16-year-old Shira Banki was murdered at the march by a religious extremist. Hundreds of police officers were on hand,…

By Activestills August 4, 2017

A Donald Trump supporter, Jerusalem, November 7, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Trump’s win poses a challenge we must respond to

The nativist rabble-rousing and promises of expulsion and exclusion that carried Donald Trump to victory are worryingly similar to the resurgence of Meir Kahane’s Kach movement in Israel. Neither can be ignored. On the eve of the U.S. presidential elections I stood opposite an alcove in Kraków’s High Synagogue, gazing into an empty socket in which a Torah scroll…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland November 9, 2016

An Israel youth covers his face with with a flag during the "Jerusalem Day" march held by Israeli nationalists to celebrate 48 years of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, May 17, 2015.

Israel’s extremists aren’t as fringe as you think

If a video of religious youth stabbing a photo of a murdered Palestinian infant isn’t enough to convince mainstream Israel that there is a problem, what will? Celebrants at a Jerusalem wedding for a couple from Israel’s radical right were filmed dancing and singing as they brandished a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, the 18 month-old…

By Lisa Goldman December 24, 2015

A teacher inspects the damage in the aftermath of an arson attack that targeted first-grade classrooms at a bilingual Jewish-Arab school near the Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Safafa, in southern Jerusalem, November 30, 2014. Anti-Arab slogans were scrawled on the walls in Hebrew reading: "Death to Arabs", and "There's no coexistence with cancer."

When setting fire to a bilingual school is no longer ‘racist’

The three teens who set fire to the Jerusalem bilingual school in November have one less thing to worry about: according to the state, their actions are no longer considered racist. Nearly five months after Jewish extremists set fire to first-grade classrooms in Jerusalem’s Max Rayne Hand in Hand school, the prosecution has reached a…

By Orly Noy April 18, 2015

MK Hanin Zoabi (photo: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org)

No parity between Zoabi’s democracy and Kahane’s racism

By simply discussing the disqualification of MK Haneen Zoabi and Baruch Marzel from the upcoming elections, the extreme right has already claimed another victory. The double-hearing held in the Supreme Court on Tuesday under an extended panel headed by Justice Naor, to discuss the disqualification of MK Haneen Zoabi and Baruch Marzel, respectively, was…

By Orly Noy February 17, 2015

Protest against the boycott Law, Tel Aviv, June 12 2011 (photo: Oren Ziv/activestills)

Let’s stop using the terms ‘fascism’ and ‘democracy’ from now on

The debate over the state of Israeli democracy (or the rise of fascism) is code designed for lefty Zionists. Others don’t get it, and it may even do more harm than good. Some thoughts following Haaretz’s interview with Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell. There has been growing discussion over the last few weeks regarding the risk of fascism…

By Noam Sheizaf August 17, 2014

What a Jewish terrorist might look like

This picture was posted, along with several others, on the right-leaning citizen journalism site Rotter.net. It was taken at a memorial evening for Rabbi Meir Kahane, held openly in Jerusalem and attended by well over 1,000 people. The slogan on the back of the shirt reads “Price Tag.” Below is the context of the pic:…

By Dimi Reider November 17, 2011