Likud MP says ultranationalist rabbi Meir Kahane was right

The deputy speaker of the Knesset has said that Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist rabbi who called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and whose Kach movement is still banned as a terrorist organisation, was right.

Nissim Vaturi, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, made the remarks during a parliamentary debate on Wednesday in which he also criticised former Likud leaders for refusing to engage with Kahane.

Challenged by other MPs that Kahane was a terrorist, and asked if he supported “Jewish terror”, Vaturi replied: “I support it. Believe me, Kahane was right in many ways where we were wrong, where the people of Israel were wrong.”

Likud leaders of the past had been wrong to exclude Kahane, Vaturi continued: “They should have examined the matters and understood one thing: Arabs on our border, terrorists on our border.”

US-born Kahane was himself elected to the Knesset in 1984 after Kach won a single seat in that year’s elections, but found himself ostracised and reviled by his fellow MPs and in wider Israeli political circles.

The US-born rabbi, who also advocated for the creation of a Jewish theocracy, was boycotted by other parties. When Kahane stood up to speak, MPs walked out. Yizhak Shamir, the Likud leader and then-prime minister, denounced him as a “dangerous figure”.

During his single term in parliament, Kahane drafted a series of explicitly racist bills, but these were roundly rejected or ignored.

By the time of the next election in 1988, Kach had been disqualified from Israeli electoral politics on the grounds of inciting racism.

Kahane was shot dead in New York City on 5 November 1990, and his movement was banned as a terrorist organisation in 1994 after one of his adherents, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinians in a killing spree at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank.

'Breeding ground for Kahanists'

Vaturi’s remarks drew condemnation from some Knesset members.

In a post on social media, Naama Lazimi, an MP for the Democrats, said she had appealed to the attorney general and the state attorney to open a criminal investigation into Vaturi for supporting a terrorist organisation.  

“There is a clear line between the escalation of Jewish terror in the territories and the normalisation of Kahane in the Israeli Knesset. Netanyahu has turned the Knesset building into a breeding ground for Kahanists; we will clean it up,” she commented.

Some Likud MPs also criticised Vaturi.

Speaking on Army Radio, Moshe Saada said the former leaders of his party had handled Kahane correctly by ostracising him.

“When he spoke, they left the plenum, because Kahane was not a democrat, was racist, and so he was the exact opposite of Likud’s values,” said Saada.

But Anton Shalhat, the chair of I’lam Media Center, which supports Palestinian journalists working in Israel, told Middle East Eye that Vaturi’s remarks pointed to levels of support within Israel for Kahanist ideology that had long been underestimated or ignored.

“Whenever there is a national confrontation, slogans like 'Kahane was right' appear on the streets,” he said.

“Previously, support for such views was covert and legally prohibited. Now, it has become open and public.”

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Vaturi’s remarks came just days after two MPs from national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Kahanist-inspired Jewish Power party, Yitzhak Kroizer and Limor Son Har Melech, participated in a conference marking the 35th anniversary of Kahane’s death.

Extreme right

Ben-Gvir himself is a former member of the Kach movement and avowed admirer of Kahane, who supports the annexation of the West Bank and reportedly once hung a portrait of Goldstein in his home.

Both Kahane and Goldstein have become idealised figures among Israeli far-right settlers, with Goldstein's grave in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba frequently visited by settlers during national holidays.

Shalhat said the existence of political parties, such as Jewish Power, formed after Kach was banned but influenced and inspired by Kahanist ideology, was evidence of the movement’s political influence.

“All the ideas Kahane advocated were already widely present across the Israeli political arena. What is new today, however, is that the far right now openly embraces these extremist, populist, and fascist ideas without the slightest sense of shame.”

But a decades-long drift in Israel towards the political far right meant that those once on the margins were now holding positions of power, he said.

“What’s also new is that this camp is hostile not only to Palestinians and Arabs but also to Jews who disagree with them, viewing them as enemies. So, while the ideas themselves are not new, the way they are expressed brazenly and without restraint certainly is.”

Shalhat said that Israeli politics had been moving steadily rightwards since 2000, but this trend had now intensified to the point that it was possible to clearly identify a far-right current, while the traditional right once represented by Likud had effectively disappeared.

“What remains is a centrist bloc leaning slightly to the right, represented by figures like [Benny] Gantz and [Yair] Lapid. Beyond that, the left has all but vanished.”