Billed as a response to the October 7 Hamas attack, the conflict in Gaza has increasingly become a war to eliminate all Palestinians—a longtime goal of Israel’s homegrown fascists.
By James Bamford Via The Nation
Rabbi Meir Kahane (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right). (Bettmann / Getty Images)
“The next [bullet] will be direct to your belly,” shouted the settler guard in both English and Hebrew. He had just fired a burst from an Uzi submachine gun not far above our heads. It was 1990, and we were in Kiryat Arba, an illegal settlement in Israel’s occupied territory. We were attempting to film the home of Robert Manning, an American citizen wanted for a brutal bombing murder in the United States and a suspect in a number of other bombings targeting Arab Americans.
At the time, I was the Washington investigative producer for ABC News, and with me was my Israeli crew: a videographer and a sound technician. For years, Manning had been hiding out and evading arrest by the US with the active help of the Israeli government, who even put him in the IDF, its army. A few hours earlier, after discovering his location, we had secretly filmed him getting into his car wearing his uniform and carrying what appeared to be another Uzi, and then followed him to a military base.
That incident more than three decades ago has great relevance today. In addition to being a reservist in the IDF, Manning was also a key soldier in Kach—a violent, racist terrorist organization founded by an American Orthodox rabbi, Meir Kahane. Although Kahane himself was assassinated in 1990, and Kach was banned by Israel’s government in 1994, over the years the rabbi’s dedicated followers, known as Kahanists, have grown tremendously in power and strength, to the point where they now play a major role in the Israeli government, including key decisions involving the ongoing war with Hamas. Kahane’s ultimate solution, after all, was the use of force to totally eliminate Palestinians from both Israel and the occupied territories—exactly what the world is witnessing today in Gaza.
“The Kahanist vision,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted, “is one that sees violence and revenge as Jewish religious imperatives, and Israel as not being worthy of existing unless it expunges the non-Jews from its midst.” It added, “With his zero-sum approach to Israel’s ethnic identity, and open call for the state to expel its Arab citizens as well as the Palestinian residents of the occupied territories, Kahane not only earned a reputation for saying what others only dared think, but also for his willingness to act preemptively against Arabs.”
Founded in Brooklyn in 1968, Kahane’s Jewish Defense League brandished flags depicting a clenched fist against a Jewish Star of David. Three years later, Kahane was convicted in New York for conspiracy to manufacture explosives and received a suspended sentence of five years. That same year, after moving to Israel, he cofounded Kach as a political party that advocated the forced removal of the entire Palestinian population, whom Kahane referred to as “dogs,” from both Israel and the occupied territories. Kach was also imported into the United States, but was banned in 1994 as a foreign terrorist organization. By 1984, Kahane’s calls for the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians had received enough popular support to win him and his Kach party a seat in Israel’s Knesset.
At the same time in the US, Kahane’s JDL continued to grow and quickly transformed into a sort of Jewish version of the Ku Klux Klan, attacking and bombing Arab Americans around the country rather than Blacks. Between 1980 and 1985 alone, the FBI documented 17 bombings by the JDL in the US. Among the key targets was Alex Odeh, a Palestinian born in what is now Israel’s occupied West Bank. At the time, he served as the Southern California regional director at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a US group advocating for Palestinian rights.
In October 1985, a bomb was planted at the entrance to the ADC’s headquarters for Southern California, killing Odeh as he opened the door. Hours later, Irv Rubin, the JDL’s national chairman, offered his views. “I have no tears for Mr. Odeh,” he said. “He got exactly what he deserved.” Eventually, the FBI’s suspicions centered on three top JDL members and Kahane associates with long criminal records: Robert Manning, Andy Green, and Keith Fuchs. “The major question is whether Kahane was behind the bombings,” a former FBI agent told me. All the suspects eventually fled to Israel and, despite their violent criminal histories, were immediately granted citizenship under that country’s Law of Return. They then took up residence in settlements located in the occupied territories.
Despite an extensive investigation by determined FBI agents, years went by with no arrests or extraditions—even though Manning and his wife were also key suspects in another brutal murder: the mail-bomb killing of Patricia Wilkerson, a secretary in a small Los Angeles computer company. Manning had been hired by a fellow JDL member to murder Wilkerson’s boss over a financial dispute, but by accident Wilkerson was instead killed by the powerful explosion.
A decade later, however, there was still no action, and it was clear that Israel was deliberately protecting the violent Kahanists. “We consider their response very disingenuous,” a former senior Justice Department source told me at the time, asking that I not use his name. “We say, ‘Excuse me, you have an international obligation. You are in violation of an international agreement by not doing this thing when we ask you.’… They’ve had years to use legal mechanisms in Israel to arrest this guy [Robert Manning] and they have not. So as near as we can tell, they have absolutely no interest in helping us.”
In April 1990, I flew to Israel to try to find Manning and seek an interview. Eventually, our story provoked a strong reaction across the country and apparently motivated the Justice Department to put increased pressure on Israel, which finally extradited Manning. In 1994, he was found guilty at a trial in Los Angeles for the brutal bombing murder of Wilkerson and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Interesting: Founded in Brooklyn in 1968 (eyes roll) ..
In 1994, he was found guilty at a trial in Los Angeles for the brutal bombing murder of Wilkerson and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
Seems just .. ish
Re: Interesting: Founded in Brooklyn in 1968 (eyes roll) ..