Kach

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Israeli anti-Arab political movement founded by Meir Kahane, banned from elections in 1988 and declared a terrorist organisation in 1994

Kach

Type Political party and movement
Founded early 1970s
Founder(s) Meir Kahane
Status Declared a terrorist organisation by the Israeli government on 13 March 1994; barred from Knesset elections since 1988
Location Israel and the occupied West Bank
Key people Meir Kahane; Baruch Marzel; Noam Federman; Tiran Pollak
Remarks Disqualified from Knesset elections in 1988 and 1992; outlawed with Kahane Chai after the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre[1]

Kach (Hebrew for "thus" or "this is the way") was an Israeli anti-Arab movement and political party founded by the American-born rabbi Meir Kahane, who had earlier founded the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in New York.[2] The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) describes it as "an extreme right-wing anti-Arab party with outright racist characteristics". Its platform called for the transfer of the Arab population out of Israel, Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and a state governed by Jewish law.[2]

Kach won a single Knesset seat in 1984, held by Kahane. It was barred from the 1988 election as racist and anti-democratic under section 7A of the Basic Law: The Knesset, and the Supreme Court of Israel upheld the ban.[3] After Kahane's assassination in 1990 the movement split into Kach and Kahane Chai. On 13 March 1994, less than three weeks after the Kach activist Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Cave of the Patriarchs in occupied Hebron, the Israeli cabinet declared both groups terrorist organisations.[1] The United States listed "Kahane Chai (Kach)" as a Foreign Terrorist Organization from 1997 to 2022.[4]

Origins

Kahane moved to Israel in September 1971.[5] The IDI dates Kach's founding to the early 1970s, by Kahane together with the JDL.[2] According to the journalist Robert I. Friedman, Kahane ran for the Knesset in 1973 "under the banner of the JDL". He announced the Kach name in a letter to the JDL board of 3 July 1974: "I would like JDL to be in the Exile what Kach will be in Israel."[6]

The historian Colin Shindler writes that Kach called for a show trial of the mayor of Hebron, organised demonstrations urging Arabs to emigrate, and drew support from "the poorest and most disaffected elements in Israeli society". Its followers threatened mass suicide during the evacuation of the Sinai settlement of Yamit.[7]

Programme

Kach's programme grew out of Kahane's own proposals. The historian Shaul Magid writes that by 1974 Kahane was calling for "a planned and well-funded emigration of Arabs from Israel" through an "Emigration Fund for Peace", which he then described as voluntary. He also sought a civil-law ban on marriage, and even dating, between Jews and Arabs.[8] Kahane's full-page advertisement in Maariv before the 1981 election called for a law against the "abomination of assimilation and communion with goyim" and a mandatory prison sentence for any Arab who had sexual relations with a Jewish woman. Magid writes that Kahane later declared he would strip Israeli Arabs of their citizenship and work to expel those who refused to give it up, and that he submitted such a bill to the Knesset in late 1985.[9] In They Must Go (1981) he wrote: "Tragedy will be ours if we do not move the Arabs out."[10]

Elections

Kach in Knesset elections[2][11]
Election Votes Share Seats Notes
1973 (8th Knesset) 12,811 0.8% 0 Ran under the JDL banner, according to Friedman
1977 (9th Knesset) 4,396 0.3% 0
1981 (10th Knesset) 5,128 0.3% 0
1984 (11th Knesset) 25,907 1.2% 1 Disqualified by the Central Elections Committee; reinstated by the Supreme Court
1988 (12th Knesset) – – – Disqualified under section 7A; appeal dismissed 18 October 1988
1992 (13th Knesset) – – – Kach and Kahane Chai both disqualified

Before the 1984 election the Central Elections Committee disqualified Kach, but the Supreme Court overruled the decision and Kahane won the party's only seat.[2] Magid writes that Kach's 25,907 votes came from 545 localities. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said he would not admit Kach to a Likud-led coalition, and on 25 December 1984 the Knesset voted to restrict Kahane's parliamentary privileges.[9][12] Shindler cites a 1985 Van Leer Institute poll indicating that Kahane's ideas attracted more than 40 per cent of Israeli youth. Magid cites a Modi'in Ezrachi poll a year after the election suggesting that Kach would then have won eleven seats.[7][12] In response to Kahane's election, the Knesset added section 7A to the Basic Law: The Knesset in 1985. It bars a list whose objects or actions include "negation of the democratic character of the State" or "incitement to racism".[3]

On 5 October 1988 the Central Elections Committee, chaired by Justice Eliezer Goldberg, disqualified Kach from the 1 November election under section 7A(2) and (3). On 18 October 1988 the Supreme Court, with President Meir Shamgar presiding, dismissed Kach's appeal. It held that Kach sought to deprive citizens identified by national origin of the right to vote and stand for office. It also found the party's objectives and conduct "clearly racist", including calls for the "humiliation" of Arab citizens "in ways very similar to the terrible experiences of the Jewish nation".[3] Shamir said "democracy must defend itself", and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel "has no room for racist movements".[13] Friedman attributes the ban to an anti-racism law passed in August 1986, and the historian Shaul Magid dates Kach's labelling as racist to 1986. The court record shows that the disqualification was made under section 7A.[14][5][3]

Kiryat Arba and the occupied West Bank

Kach had a strong base in Kiryat Arba, the settlement next to Hebron, where Kahane himself bought a flat.[15] Friedman writes that Kach shared power on the Kiryat Arba council and in 1986 pushed through a resolution barring the council from hiring Arab workers. Israel's attorney general declared the resolution "null and void", calling it "discriminatory" and "racist".[16] Baruch Goldstein appeared on Kach's list and represented the party on the Kiryat Arba council.[2][17]

In 1980 Kahane and his associate Baruch Green were held in administrative detention for allegedly planning action against Arabs in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had used detention without trial against Jewish citizens.[18] The historian Sara Yael Hirschhorn records that on 13 March 1984 a cell of American-born Kahane followers ambushed a Palestinian bus near Ramallah, injuring six Palestinians. Levi Hazan, Matthew Liebowitz and Yehuda Richter were convicted, and Michael Guzofsky was acquitted for lack of evidence. Hirschhorn says Richter and Guzofsky later served in the leadership of Kahane Chai.[19]

Split after Kahane's death

Meir Kahane was assassinated in New York on 5 November 1990. His funeral in Jerusalem was followed by attacks on Palestinians and journalists by his followers.[20] The movement then split into Kach and Kahane Chai ("Kahane Lives"), and both were disqualified from the 1992 election.[2] Kahane's son Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane lost the struggle to lead Kach and founded Kahane Chai. He lived in Kfar Tapuach, a settlement in the occupied West Bank.[21] In 1994 the Israeli government named Baruch Marzel, Noam Federman and Tiran Pollak as Kach's "central activists", and Binyamin Kahane, David Axelrod and Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov as Kahane Chai's.[1]

The 1994 ban

On 25 February 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a Kach member from Kiryat Arba, shot dead 29 Palestinian worshippers at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and was beaten to death by survivors.[22] On 27 February the cabinet ordered administrative detention, restraining orders and disarmament measures against "radical elements" among settlers. It also asked the attorney general to prepare the legal basis for outlawing "Kach" and "Kahana Chai".[23]

On 13 March 1994 the cabinet voted unanimously to declare Kach and Kahane Chai terrorist organisations under clause 8 of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance of 1948. This was the first time the ordinance had been used against Jewish groups.[1][24] The declaration also covers any group pursuing the same aims by similar means "even if they bear different names or designations".[1] According to the JTA, the decision rested on evidence from the security services and police implicating the two groups in unsolved murders of Palestinians. No court has ruled on those allegations.[24] The Los Angeles Times reported that leaders faced up to 20 years in prison and members, estimated at about 400, up to five years if they continued their activities. Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair said there was "no way to avoid infringing on the basic rights of people in these organizations".[25] Israel's Ministry of Defence lists the Kach movement as a declared terrorist organisation. Its entry records the 1994 declaration and a further designation for the West Bank dated 14 May 1997.[26]

The Shamgar Commission found that Goldstein acted alone.[27] The JTA reported that the commission approved the government's ban and recommended "firm action" against "extreme elements" in the territories, including members of Kach and Kahane Chai.[28]

United States designation

The United States Department of State designated "Kahane Chai (Kach)" a Foreign Terrorist Organization on 8 October 1997 and revoked the designation on 20 May 2022.[4] The revocation notice, signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said the circumstances behind the designation had changed.[29] The State Department said the group was "no longer engaged in terrorism or terrorist activity" but would remain a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.[30]

Successors

Shindler writes that Kahane Chai inspired the Hilltop Youth, and that Kahane's followers Baruch Marzel and Michael Ben-Ari "followed the parliamentary road". Ben-Ari was elected to the Knesset for the National Union in 2009.[31] Otzma Yehudit traces its roots to the Jewish National Front, founded by Marzel in 2004. It ran as Otzma LeYisrael in 2013, and Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the Knesset in 2021 on a joint list with Religious Zionism.[32] Its three ministers joined the government formed at the end of 2022. They resigned in January 2025 and returned two months later, and the IDI records Otzma Yehudit winning seven seats with 326,793 votes (5.7 per cent) in 2026.[32] Magid writes that Kahane "built an ideational infrastructure that outlived the now-outlawed Kahanist organizations", visible among settler youth in the "price-taggers", the "hilltop youth", the Lahava movement, the Jewish Leadership movement and the Derech Chaim movement of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh.[33]

Chabad

Kahane spoke in praise of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in the Knesset in December 1985, saying the Land of Israel "belongs to the Admor of Chabad".[34] Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, citing a Yedioth Ahronoth report, write that "a large group represented the Chabad Hassidic movement" at the Jerusalem stage of Goldstein's funeral.[35] Magid describes the theology of Yitzchak Ginsburgh, whose Derech Chaim movement he counts among Kahane's heirs, as "Chabad-inflected". He writes that Ginsburgh opposes Zionism and the secular state of Israel, "in some ways similarly, though with marked differences, to Kahane".[36] Overlaps between Kahanism and the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, including in Kiryat Arba and Hebron, are covered at Chabad and Kahanism.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Gad Yaacobi, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, Letter dated 14 March 1994 transmitting the Israeli Government decision on Kach and Kahane Chai United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine, 14 March 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Israel Democracy Institute, Kach Party Israel Democracy Institute, accessed 10 November 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Supreme Court of Israel, Neiman v. Chairman of the Central Election Committee for the 12th Knesset, EA 1/88 Versa: Opinions of the Supreme Court of Israel (English translation), judgment of 18 October 1988, accessed 10 November 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 United States Department of State, Foreign Terrorist Organizations U.S. Department of State, accessed 10 November 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Shaul Magid, Introduction Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021, ISBN 978-0-691-17933-9, p. 2, accessed 10 November 2026.
  6. ↑ Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill Books, 1990, ISBN 1-55652-078-6, pp. 167, 175–176.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Colin Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right: From Odessa to Hebron, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 331.
  8. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, pp. 136, 146–147.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, p. 77.
  10. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, pp. 152–153.
  11. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Final Election Results for the Eleventh Knesset JTA Daily Bulletin, 13 August 1984, accessed 10 November 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, p. 143.
  13. ↑ Daniel Williams, High Court Bars Kahane Party From Israeli Vote Los Angeles Times, 19 October 1988, accessed 10 November 2026.
  14. ↑ Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet, 1990, pp. 257–258.
  15. ↑ Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet, 1990, p. 173.
  16. ↑ Robert I. Friedman, The False Prophet, 1990, p. 259.
  17. ↑ Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017, pp. 194–195.
  18. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Court Upholds Administrative Arrest of Kahane and an Associate JTA Daily Bulletin, 21 May 1980, accessed 10 November 2026.
  19. ↑ Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, pp. 192–194.
  20. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Riots Accompany Kahane Funeral As Arabs and Media Are Set Upon JTA Daily Bulletin, 8 November 1990, accessed 10 November 2026.
  21. ↑ Lawrence Joffe, Binyamin Kahane The Guardian, 9 January 2001, accessed 10 November 2026.
  22. ↑ Sara Yael Hirschhorn, City on a Hilltop, 2017, p. 196.
  23. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Documents submitted in compliance with a special decision of the Committee: Israel (CERD/C/282) United Nations, 3 May 1995 (submitted 8 August 1994), pp. 3–4, accessed 10 November 2026.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Israel Bans Kach, Kahane Chai Citing Them As Terrorist Groups JTA Daily Bulletin, 14 March 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  25. ↑ Michael Parks, Israel Outlaws 2 Extremist Groups Los Angeles Times, 14 March 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  26. ↑ Ministry of Defence, National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing, Kach Movement National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel (in Hebrew), accessed 10 November 2026.
  27. ↑ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Documents submitted in compliance with a special decision of the Committee: Israel (CERD/C/282), 1995, excerpts from the Shamgar Commission report, chapter 8, paras 9–10, pp. 6–7.
  28. ↑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Hebron Massacre Inquiry Exonerates Government, IDF; Blames Goldstein Only JTA Daily Bulletin, 27 June 1994, accessed 10 November 2026.
  29. ↑ United States Department of State, In the Matter of the Designation of Kahane Chai (and Other Aliases) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization Federal Register, 87 FR 31050, 20 May 2022, accessed 10 November 2026.
  30. ↑ United States Department of State, Revocation of Five Foreign Terrorist Organizations Designations and the Delisting of Six Deceased Individuals as Specially Designated Global Terrorists U.S. Department of State, 20 May 2022, accessed 10 November 2026.
  31. ↑ Colin Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right, 2015, pp. 335–336.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Israel Democracy Institute, Otzma Yehudit Israel Democracy Institute, accessed 10 November 2026.
  33. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, p. 195.
  34. ↑ Knesset, Divrei HaKnesset, 11th Knesset, 2nd session, 153rd sitting Divrei HaKnesset (in Hebrew), 23 December 1985, accessed 10 November 2026.
  35. ↑ Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, new edn, London: Pluto Press, 2004, p. 102.
  36. ↑ Shaul Magid, Meir Kahane, 2021, p. 234 n. 86; see also p. 242 n. 16.
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