Visionary hero of the Jewish people

Visionary hero of the Jewish people

Pages of history: Rabbi Meir Kahane

THE history of modern Israel has accounted for only 60 years, and paradoxically reflects the destiny of many great civilisations that have had their cyclical developments over an extended period -- growth, decline and disappearance of civilisations such as Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, ancient Greece, the Rome empire and the Mayans.

But the history of new Israel has one unique touch – the cyclical developments that mark the rise and fall of great civilizations, in Israel are happening simultaneously. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is Israel’s propensity for its apparent self-destruction, for example, giving away land, supplying its enemies with arms, allowing its enemies to be elected to parliament and appeasing terrorists.

This is happening at such a rapid rate that the people of Israel have had no time to visualise what is happening to them and take action to stop this self-destructive process.

During this short period from 1948, the bare land of the ancient Israel has been converted into the one of the most developed countries in the world and at the same time is being destroyed from within by its own government, which is actively supported by contemporary goons (Arabs), leftists and so-called friends and enemies.

For believers in God this is not surprising, because this situation is described prophetically in great detail in the Bible, but now, unfortunately, destiny of the country in the hand of the no- believers and that spell a problems.

We have a country that has the top minds in the development of technology such as electronics, medicine, agriculture, telecommunications and construction, and we have still got people without a roof and food. We have one of the best armies in the world and a country without a border to protect. We win many wars but lose territory, international prestige and internal security. We are congregating with our eternal enemy and hate our most precise treasure, Judaism and religious Jews.

We have no constitution and, as the late Lubavitcher Rebbe said to Moshe Katsav in 1992: “We are talking about the government of Israel declaring open war against God and his Torah.”

We have falling from the sky a bunch of nomads calling themselves Palestinians, whom we have to tend and provide a place to call their own state. The harsh irony is that they don’t want a state, they want annihilate Jews. It’s as simple as that. We are peaceful people looking for good relation with our neighbours and they have been beating and killing us uninterruptedly for the past 100 years through pogroms, wars, intifadas and terrorist acts.

Maybe a good look at the past 30 to 40 years of our new history, will give Jewish people the impetus for reassessing, lifting their spiritual power for fighting and survival, for real fulfillment of a 2000-year-old dream to return and live in our own land.

About 40 years ago amid the political and social chaos actively steered by leftist media, Peace Now and other liberals, rose one man, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who not only understood the problems facing this country, but was a real prophet who explained the grim future and the way to avert it – separation of Jews and Arabs and the sending of Arabs out of Israel.

He was a man of high integrity, intelligence, education and religion and fully devoted to the ideas of Zionism and Judaism. Not surprisingly, the secular leftist official and intellectual establishment disdained him.

Meir David Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 1, 1932. His father, Rabbi Charles Kahane, was involved in the Revisionist Zionist movement, and was a close friend of Zev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky. Meir was active in Betar, the Jewish youth movement.

Kahane received a degree in International Law from New York University, and ordination from the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn. He edited the Jewish Press, and served as a pulpit rabbi and teacher in New York until the mid-1960s.

His life's work, fight for establishment of Zionist Jewish State in Israel, however, started in 1968, when he founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Kahane and his family moved to Israel in 1971, where he founded the anti-Arab Kach party. The party's platform called for the annexation of all conquered territories and the removal of all Palestinians. Under the auspices of Kach, Kahane continued to lobby for his beliefs and for that was jailed on several occasions. He was the first Jew in Israel to be accused of sedition.

Kahane ran for Knesset and lost in 1976 and 1980, and was finally elected in 1984. His movement continued to grow until, prior to the 1988 Knesset elections, the Kach party was banned from running by a Labor-Likud coalition.

In 1975, the United Nations equated Zionism with racism and leftist Israeli government quickly replaced classical Zionism of Theodore Herzl, Zeev Jabotinsky, Nahum Sokolov and others, with social or post Zionism, based on socialists ideas of David Ben Gurion and liberal materialist value of Western intellectuals.

On that ground, the first time in Israel democratic history, a political party Kach was expelled from Knesset as a racist-Zionist party. A few years later, when the UN overran their own definition (Zionism equals racism), no one dared to rehabilitate Kach, the only party that openly requested the establishment of a Jewish state for Jewish people on God-given Land.

Once, sitting in a car, he said: “Now they want to kill me. If it happens, it will mean, that God have got another plan to save us.” In 1990, Kahane was assassinated.

During his life, Kahane attempted to spread his message through a variety of forums. He wrote numerous books espousing his opinions; his most famous works They Must Go and Never Again! He also founded a seminary in Jerusalem, the Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea.

Even after his death, Kahane has had a tremendous influence on the Israeli political scene. In March 1994, the Kach party and its offshoot, Kahane Chai (Kahane Lives), founded by Kahane's son Binyamin Zev, were officially designated as terrorist organisations by the Israeli government and the US State Department. The immediate cause of this designation was the February 1994 attack on the al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, in which Kach member Baruch Goldstein shot 34 Muslims. Kach supported Goldstein's actions, and referred to him as a hero.

Binyamin Zev Kahane was murdered in 2001.

A few years ago, tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi was assassinated in the centre of Jerusalem. He was a dedicated Jabotinsky follower and promoted the idea of removing Arabs from Israel.

Who killed these people? Logically, it was supposed to be those who were most afraid of them, those who do not believe in God, hate Judaism and Jewish people and reject the Jewish state of Israel.

Nowadays, Israel’s government is a dictatorship. The only democracy in the Middle East is a parody of democracy. It is a lawless state with enemies within and without. It is a state deeply divided by those who want a strong Jewish state and those who do not.

All Zionism has been betrayed, and instead we are witnessing the destruction of Israel by post-Zionists whose intention is to annihilate Jewish soul, land, people, religion and God. Everything sacred to the Jewish people for thousands of years is under threat.

A week ago, Jewish people celebrated Channukah, which commemorates the revolt against the Greeks more than 2000 years ago, in which a small family of Torah-dedicated Jews, the Hashmonaim, took arms against a formidable enemy, and achieved victory. It is not a matter of numbers, but a matter of spirit.

For those who care, the time has come to take your destiny in your own hands.

NEVER AGAIN!

It is a slogan born out of the soul of the great man Kahane, and let us believe it will lead a new generation of Hashmonaim to introduce Kahane and his ideas.