Meir Kahane
Meir David Kahane (Hebrew: הרב מאיר דוד כהנא ) (/kəˈhɑːnə/; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-Israeli rabbi, ultranationalist writer, and political figure, whose work became either the direct or indirect foundation of most modern Jewish militant and extreme right-wing political groups. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset. Kahane gained recognition as an activist for Jewish causes, such as organizing Jewish self-defense groups in deteriorating neighborhoods and the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate. He later became known in the United States and Israel for violent terrorist attacks as well as political and religious views that included proposing emergency Jewish mass-immigration to Israel due to the imminent threat of a "second Holocaust" in the United States, advocating that Israel's democracy be replaced by a state modeled on Jewish law, and promoting the idea of a Greater Israel in which Israel would annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Kahane proposed a plan under which Arabs would leave Israel and receive compensation for their property, or remain as non-citizens without political or voting rights; those who refused either option would be forcibly removed without compensation. While serving in Israel's Knesset in the mid-1980s, Kahane proposed laws, none of which passed, to forbid sexual relations between non-Jews and Jews, to separate Jewish and Arab neighborhoods, and to prohibit meetings of any sort between Jewish and Arab young people. Kahane founded the FBI listed terrorist group the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in the USA as well as an Israeli political party Kach ("This is the Way"). In 1971, he was convicted for plotting to manufacture explosives. In 1984 he became a member of the Knesset when Kach gained one seat in parliamentary elections. In 1988, the Israeli government banned Kach as "racist" and "anti-democratic" under the terms of an ad hoc law. Kahane was killed in a Manhattan hotel by an Arab gunman in November 1990 after Kahane concluded a speech warning American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was "too late". Some researchers, such as Peter Lance, consider him one of the first, if not the very first, victim of the then-nascent Al Qaeda, as his killer is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's network. The cell that Kahane's assassin belonged to had been training in the New York metro since the middle of 1989. In 2007 the FBI released over a thousand documents relating to their daily surveillance of Kahane since the early 1960s. Kahane's name has come up as precedent in many court cases. Two examples are the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case, where the defense tried unsuccessfully to argue that informants Emad Saleem and Ali Mohamed had entrapped the conspirators, as had been done by the FBI to Kahane. In another case brought up at the Israeli Supreme Court, the banning of Kahane's political party first and then upheld in appeal, within the framework of the Israeli Democracy, can be used to ban other parties deemed racist or which espouse racist views. The prosecution argued that Arab MP Haneen Zoabi should be banned for denying the Jewish People's existence and was banned by the Central Elections Committee, using the Kahane precedent. A week later this was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court. Attempts at banning of Strong Israel and Balad political parties were overturned using the Kahane precedent unsuccessfully as well. Some notable 1960s-era folk singers have made positive comments about Kahane. Woody Guthrie's son Arlo described Kahane as "a really nice, patient teacher" who tutored him for his Bar Mitzvah. However, he felt that Kahane subsequently "started going haywire". Woody and his wife Marjorie had both met Kahane, and separately decades later Bob Dylan referred to him as "a really sincere guy".