Jewish Extremism

Israeli security experts have warned Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, that right-wing Jewish extremists may be plotting to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City. Two factors combine to make the threat more potent. The first is that President Clinton's current peace proposals require the relinquishment of Israeli control of the Temple Mount to the Palestinian Authority. This proposal has been vehemently rejected by the Israeli right and by Orthodox Jewish leaders. Prime Minister Barak has also rejected the idea, but there are those on the Israeli right who claim that he is secretly reconciled to such an arrangement.

The second factor relates to the killing, near the West Bank town of Ofra on January 31st, of Binyamin and Talia Kahane, by Palestinian gunmen. A group styling themselves the Martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Intifada claimed responsibility for the attack. It is believed that the attack on the Kahane family's vehicle was not a specific attempt to assassinate Binyamin Kahane, but was simply the latest in a series of attacks on Jewish settlers travelling in the West Bank.

Binyamin Kahane was the son of radical American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane. He was the founder of Kahane Chai ('Kahane Lives') following the assassination of his father, Meir Kahane, by an Egyptian national, while on a speaking tour in the United States in 1990. Meir Kahane was the founder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and Kach ('Thus'). Both Kach and Kahane Chai were outlawed by the Israeli government in 1994 under the 1948 Terrorism Law, and are listed as terrorist organisations in the United States.

Meir Kahane gained notoriety after his calls to expel Palestinian families from the West Bank, and his proposal that the Israeli government offer Palestinian families large sums of money to leave their homes and resettle in Arab countries. His son, Binyamin, 34, had been jailed several times for his anti-Arab activities. Baruch Goldstein, a Kach member, murdered 29 Palestinians praying in the Tomb of the Patriarch in 1994, while the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by a Kahane supporter in 1995.

On Friday last, following an alert from Israel's Defense Ministry, FBI agents raided the Hatikva Jewish Identity Center in Brooklyn, New York, amid warnings that Ehud Barak was in danger of being assassinated to stop him making compromises in return for peace with the Palestinians. The raid was part of an investigation into whether the group was raising money for 'terrorist activity'. The center is alleged to be associated with Kach.

Jewish Extremists Plot to Blow Up Al Aqsa Mosque

News article from Arabia.com relates both Arab and Israeli fears should Jewish fundamentalists attempt to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Online Guide: The Noble Sanctuary (or Temple Mount)

An online guide to Al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa Mosque is located at its southern-most end and at its center is the celebrated Dome of the Rock.

The Official Kahane Web Site

News and commentary on the killing of Binyamin and Talia Kahane, background on various organisations founded by the Kahanes, etc.