Israeli right-wing activist: Rabbi Kahane is sitting in heaven and smiling

[Scurrilous]

At a memorial, the jubilant mood showed the Kach party, banned from Knesset 23 years ago and outlawed for 17, is no longer on the margins.

<snip>

"Once upon a time, right-wing activists used to hand out bumper stickers lambasting the "hostile media." But on Tuesday, at a memorial marking the 21st anniversary of Rabbi Meir Kahane's murder, not a bad word was said about the press. On the contrary, the "hostile media" provided the evening's chief entertainment - a fact that merely contributed to the euphoria gripping the massive crowd.

Clip after clip that had aired on Israel's commercial television stations over the last year was shown on the big screen of the Heichal David hall in Jerusalem's Romema neighborhood. There was a report broadcast by Channel 10 just two days ago about Ariel Zilber's new song, "Kahane was right." A Channel 2 report that praised longtime activist Itamar Ben-Gvir as "a skilled media machine" and "a kind of celeb" also won applause. Another Channel 10 report described how African refugees enjoyed a day at Tel Aviv's Gordon pool - to the horror of the pool's usual clientele - with MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union ) and far-right activist Baruch Marzel picking up the tab. Then back to Channel 2, which showed Ben-Ari explaining how he would respond to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip: "24 hours, and there would be no more Beit Hanun." The crowd went wild.

"Today, Rabbi Kahane is sitting in heaven and smiling," Ben-Gvir told the audience. And wherever he is now, he undoubtedly is smiling. Once, his followers were a marginal bunch. But today - 23 years after his Kach party was banned from running for Knesset and 17 years after it was outlawed altogether - they are a huge crowd, including many seemingly normative young people.

"Many people ask why we're still doing this in such a small hall," the emcee told the packed room. "But this is the only hall in Jerusalem that doesn't employ Arabs. It deserves this honor."

Moreover, if once the left was able to make life miserable for the Kahanists, today, it is Ben-Ari and other right-wing MKs who are making life miserable for leftists.

"Today, it isn't just Ben-Ari," Ben-Gvir noted. "In Yisrael Beiteinu, in National Union, even in Likud they understand that Kahane was right."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-right-wing-activist-rabbi-kahane-is-sitting-in-heaven-and-smiling-1.395821

[rpannier]

1. I think they meant looking up and 'still sizzling' nt

[Scurrilous]

2. Heh.

:thumbsup:

[Scurrilous]

3. A boycott of their own? Settlers compiling list of businesses that employ “Arabs”

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"Haaretz reports that settlers from Yitzhar have been canvassing Israeli businesses in Jerusalem to determine which ones employ Arab-Israelis, so that the names of these companies can be put into a public directory.

The project, which Haaretz says is called "Hebrew Labor," is being spearheaded by the grandson of far-right rabbi Meir Kahane, whose political movement, Kach, has been banned in Israel (the "Jewish Defense Leagues" are spiritual Kahanist successors).

The Israeli police arrested Kahane's grandson on the suspicion that he was conducting surveillance for terrorist attacks, and he has since been released. He and his cohorts - Haaretz estimates less than two dozen people are involved with "Hebrew Labor," almost all of them young men from Yitzhar - have actually been in Jerusalem for a while under a sort of restraining order: they received legal papers ordering them to remain in the city pending a decision by the government to allow them to return to Yitzhar and its environs because they are suspected of plotting price taggings."

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/a-boycott-of-their-own-settlers-compiling-list-of-businesses-that-employ-arabs.html