In light of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s announcement that he welcomes bringing a far-right Kahanist party into his governing coalition, T’ruah calls on the Internal Revenue Service to take immediate action to investigate our complaint regarding U.S. tax-exempt funding that supports Israeli organizations carrying out the legacy of terrorist Meir Kahane.
Please see our petition standing with the 12,000 Israelis who have already denounced Kahanist extremists and demanded they be excluded from the Knesset.
Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish power”), the party that may soon sit in the Knesset, is the reincarnation of Kahane’s party, Kach, which was outlawed in Israel and deemed a terrorist group. Many of the leaders of Otzma Yehudit also lead the Kahanist groups named in T’ruah’s complaint.
This morning, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted a warning that if HaBayit HaYehudi (the “Jewish Home” party) and Otzma Yehudit do not unite, a left-wing government will be established “with the support of the Arab parties.” “Do not put the land of Israel in danger,” he concluded.
What endangers Israel is not the political participation of its Arab citizens, but rather a government that welcomes extremists who celebrate violence and preach genocide.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, Kahane and the groups he led preached genocide against Palestinians, and carried out terrorist attacks against Palestinian and Soviet targets. In 1985, Israel’s High Court ruled that Kahane’s party, Kach, could not run for Knesset. Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir of Likud — Netanyahu’s own party — had already refused to join a coalition with Kach. In the 1990s, Israel formally outlawed the two organizations then associated with Kahane, and the U.S. State Department designated these as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Otzma Yehudit has released an election ad that shows its leaders beating up Palestinians in a shop in Hebron, and bragging of teaching Palestinians “with their hands” that Jews are not freiers (suckers).
Learn more in this Washington Post op-ed, “Your Tax Dollars Are Propping Up the Intellectual Heirs to an Israeli Terrorist.”
In August, T’ruah complained to the IRS about three organizations funding Israeli groups that proudly affiliate with Kahane, and who share leaders with Otzma Yehudit. These groups include Central Fund of Israel, which sends $20-22 million a year to the most extremist organizations in Israel including those that channel funds to Lehava –a group that prides itself on violence against Palestinians and Israeli progressives, and that shares significant leadership with Otzma Yehudit; American Friends of Yeshivat HaRaayon HaYehudi, the yeshiva founded by Kahane, which the State Department explicitly lists (by its English name) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization; and the Jewish Heritage Movement, which sponsors a hostel that distributes Kahane’s books and other writings.
We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu to reject any coalition with Kahane’s disciples, and we demand that the IRS ensure that American taxpayer dollars will no longer support these dangerous extremists.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights mobilizes a network of more than 2,000 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism that, together with the Jewish community, act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
To learn more or to speak with T’ruah Executive Director Rabbi Jill Jacobs, contact Jaime Marvin at jmarvin@truah.org.
