Nadene Goldfoot
Upsetting Biden and shaking up many Americans, the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane's anniversary was remembered by one of the conservative religious party members, Itamar Ben-Gvir whose party is part of Netanyahu's new coalition. Some of the pundits have called the Rabbi as Mayor Kahanie, pronounced so badly I hardly recognized who they were speaking about, but they are unduly worried.
"Netanyahu’s future Cabinet isn't “a nightmare,” and Israel is not entering a “dark tunnel,” as Thomas Friedman, leftist writer has put it. The Israelis voted to punish a failed government that was unable to assure personal security throughout the country. They did the normal thing that citizens do in a democracy: they threw out the scoundrels. They voted in Benjamin Netanyahu, a familiar face who served 15 years previously. Netanyahu's coalition seems to be made up of Israel's religious parties. I must remind everyone: Israel is a Democracy. This is what the people voted for. The USA and Biden are showing a 2-faced selfish-type of behavior. Israel is not a carbon-copy of the USA. It was formed to keep Judaism alive and well along with the Jewish people, a people without their own country for 1888 years. Lost in 70 CE and regained in 1958, Israel was first recognized by President Harry S. Truman of the USA. I don't even think they needed coalitions then.
Because fantasies of co-existence, equality, and harmony befuddle the liberal left, the right must come to the rescue.
In Israel, the right looks reality in the eye. It is in touch with the past and armed with an integral identity. It is guided by interests and not ideals. It recognizes that force may be necessary in place of words. Ronald Reagan used the phrase “peace through strength” against the Soviet Union, and it worked.
This mentality catapulted Netanyahu back to power, and it wasn’t surprising. With fear lurking everywhere, Netanyahu aroused hope in many Israelis, while his coalition partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, running on the Religious Zionist ticket, may be the man of the hour. They have both become symbols and a voice at this critical moment in history."
My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot of South Africa, was bosom buddies with this Rabbi Kahane. Stanley had been the Chief of Intelligence for the Stern Group before 1948. Stanley lived in Jerusalem, and drove Kahane around a lot. Stanley was probably his only friend.
"Meir David HaKohen Kahane when starting out: Hebrew: רבי מאיר דוד הכהן כהנא; born Martin David Kahane; August 1, 1932 – November 5, 1990) was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset before later being convicted of acts of terrorism. A cofounder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and founder of the Israeli political party Kach, he espoused strong views against antisemitism.
In 1968, Kahane was one of the co-founders of the JDL in the United States. In 1971, he co-founded Kach ("Thus"), a new political party in Israel. That same year, he was convicted in New York for conspiracy to manufacture explosives and received a suspended sentence of five years.
In Israel, he was convicted for plotting to blow up the Libyan embassy in Brussels in revenge for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, receiving a suspended sentence and probation. In 1984, he became a member of the Knesset, when Kach gained its only-ever seat in parliamentary elections. Kahane was boycotted across the aisles of the Knesset, and would often speak in front of an empty chamber. The Israel Broadcasting Authority similarly avoided coverage of his activities. The Central Elections Committee tried to ban Kahane from running in the 1984 elections, but this ban was overturned by the Supreme Court because there was no law to support it. In response, the Knesset approved an ad hoc law that allowed for the banning of parties that are "racist" or "undemocratic". In 1988, despite polls showing Kach gaining popularity due in part to the ongoing First Intifada, Kach was banned from entering that year's elections.
- July 25, 1982. Yoel Lerner, a member of the militant Meir Kahane Kach movement, storms the mosque grounds with plans to dynamite and destroy the Dome of the Rock. This happened when I lived in Safed, Israel, and I wasn't even aware of it. I had written in my diary that the PLO were still in Lebanon, and so our soldiers have to stay, too. The main news here has been the unfairness of the press and TV media in reporting this war. Even many of the Israelis don't seem to understand what and why it's happening. The results are Peace Now demonstrations. As we understand the events, Lebanon had been really taken over unwillingly by the PLO and Syrians, and hasn't had a country for that long. The PLO is a terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel, or at least that's in their written charter. They took over the West bank and Jerusalem. They bombed our civilian centers with katusha rockets. ......"
.jpg)
.jpg)
Ben Gvir, an extremist who had faced dozens of charges of hate speech against Arabs, was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994, massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in what became known as the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. He removed the portrait after he entered politics. In 1995, he threatened the then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin —who was assassinated two weeks later— saying "we got to his car, and we'll get to him too," after having stolen a car ornament from his Cadillac.[
As a lawyer, he is also known for defending Jewish radicals on trial in Israel. He has called for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel. He is currently a member of the Knesset, his voter base mostly consisting of young Israelis.
It is a conundrum when a religious person or party includes some pretty wild terroristic people, all right. Itamar Ben-Gvir was born in Mevaseret Zion. His father was born in Jerusalem to Iraqi Jewish immigrants. He worked at a gasoline company and dabbled in writing. His mother was a Kurdish Jewish immigrant who had been active in the Irgun as a teenager and was a homemaker.
His family was secular, but as a teenager he adopted religious and radical right-wing views during the First Intifada. He first joined a right-wing youth movement affiliated with Moledet, a party which advocated transferring Arabs out of Israel, and then joined the youth movement of the even more radical Kach and Kahane Chai party, which was eventually designated as a terrorist organization and outlawed by the Israeli government. He became youth coordinator of Kach, and claimed that he was detained at age 14. When he came of age for conscription into the Israel Defense Forces at 18, he was exempted from service by the IDF due to his extreme-right political background."Ben-Gvir continued to be associated with the Kahanist movement, of which his party, Otzma Yehudit, is said to be one of the ideological successors to Kahane." That's why he remembered Rabbi Meir Kahane's death
Coming from a secular family, I think Gvir needs an extensive class about Judaism and the Golden Rule. He's acting terribly in my opinion. No excuse. Someone has to sit him down and teach him our lessons. He's dangerous like a bomb who has already exploded several times. Hopefully, Netanyahu will handle him.
The wonder of it all is that there hasn't been more people coming out of our Jewish population like Kahane and Gvir. Jews have had it up to here with anti-Semitism and Jewish Israelis have been fighting to defend Israel since before it was born on May 14, 1948, dodging rockets, mortars, missiles, curses, lies, anti-Semitism at its worst. Jews are fighting against terrorists all the time doing even worse things. It's that we are never to get to their level of behavior. It's not admirable or right.
I24 thinks that the coalition will be of Likud, Shas, Religious Zionism and United Torah Judaism (UTJ).
No comments:
Post a Comment