[Salon] Mainstreaming the Extreme: How Meir Kahane’s Vision of Jewish Supremacy Conquered Israeli Politics  - Foundation for Middle East Peace

On the subject of Israeli fascists, in my continuing study of 21st Century fascism, as a legal/political theorist, and Army JAG Officer and U.S. citizen, in trying to understand how the US so readily adopted the fascist legal theory of Carl Schmitt in 2o01 (with no exaggeration, with my opposition to that leading to my being invited to a conference on Schmitt at Princeton University, in about 2011 or 2012, with me in vigorous opposition to too many of the people there, who would have classified themselves as “liberals” [the Conservative Schmittians, like Adrian Vermeule of Harvard, and of the West Coast Straussians of Claremont and Hillsdale, were elsewhere]), and of 21st Century Fascism as a whole. 

And to put the escalation of Israeli genocide against the Palestinians into that context, I have necessarily focused on Yoram Hazony’s “National Conservatism” as the current embodiment of fascism and its assault upon “Enlightenment Ideas” of Human Rights, as he promotes in his books. To especially include his: Conservatism: A Rediscovery,” which is all the rage amongst Trumpian Conservatives today. More revealing than that even, and of his “anti-Enlightenment” ideology he spells out, so opposed to “rights” brought into the U.S. Constitution and International Law with Enlightenment thinking, as a prominent Traditional Conservative political theorist so celebrated as a precursor to Trumpism also so vigorously opposed, to his dying day, is Hazony’s earlier, 2002, “The Jewish State.” In it, with only a little bit of cross-checking, Hazony spells out his Kahanist ideology, in his identical way of seeing “The Jewish State” as did Kahane. And the current crop of Kahanists now in the Israeli government, as described below, and who can be seen in the YT links below. Or as they prefer to be called: Conservatives: 


Young Benjamin Netanyahu on Palestine (1978)

Ben Shapiro | Cambridge Union

Yoram Hazony | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 79


Yoram Hazony | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 129


But the attached file below lays out an identical legal/political, anti-Enlightenment, ideology. Curiously, professed “libertarians” don’t seem to mind denunciations of them and the “rights’” they profess to hold dear, as I personally saw with a (one-time?) friend, when Trump got his $100 billion military spending increase, but “on the bright side,” also got a tax cut vastly disproportionally beneficial for the Oligarchs who got him elected. 


Attachment: 5 The Debate about the Rechtsstaat in Nazi Germany, 1933– 1936.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document


And not to forget Ben Gvir, even right-wing Times of Israel found him so right-wing that he was a bit unsavory (but probably not too unsavory for the new, libertarian, Argentine President: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J49KoVsY5FA, who’s moving their Embassy to Jerusalem too, following in Trump’s path:
https://www.reuters.com/world/israel-thanks-argentinas-milei-pledge-move-embassy-jerusalem-2023-12-04/, who’s also following through on his pledge to the Argentine people that “they will get it good,” with his election, “good and hard,” with “shock adjustment” coming: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/11/argentinas-javier-milei-tells-nation-to-brace-for-painful-economic-shock#:~:text=Newly%20inaugurated%20libertarian%20president%20warns,alternative%20to%20a%20shock%20adjustment%27.&text=Argentina%27s%20new%20President%20Javier%20Milei,of%20economic%20stagnation%20and%20decline.)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvirs-policy-goals-going-to-extremes-even-europes-far-right-wont-touch/
BLUF: "In a section on “The enemies of Israel,” the manifesto declares that “the war against the enemies of Israel is total,” and that Otzma’s goal is “to extend [Israeli] sovereignty to all parts of the Land of Israel which were liberated in the Six Day War and arrange the status of the enemies of Israel in the Arab countries surrounding us.”

The next related policy goal is on encouraging the emigration of Arab citizens of Israel.

“Out of a desire for true peace, Otzma Yehudit will work toward removing the enemies of Israel from our land. A national agency for emigration will be created to encourage emigration.”

The manifesto, barely two pages long and short on detail, does not lay out who the “enemies” are. (The Times of Israel made several requests to Ben Gvir’s office for an interview to elaborate further on the party’s goals but these requests were refused. A response sent by Ben Gvir to written questions posed to him appears at the bottom of this article.)

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https://fmep.org/resource/18777/

Mainstreaming the Extreme: How Meir Kahane’s Vision of Jewish Supremacy Conquered Israeli Politics

Mainstreaming the Extreme: How Meir Kahane’s Vision of Jewish Supremacy Conquered Israeli Politics 


Thursday, March 18th

featuring Amjad Iraqi (+972 Magazine), Professor Rabbi Shaul Magid (Dartmouth College and author of the forthcoming Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical), Natasha Roth-Rowland (University of Virginia) in conversation with Lara Friedman (FMEP).

For the resources shared during the webinar, please scroll down. 

Podcast version of this webinar is: Soundcloud |Spotify

When Israeli citizens go to the polls on March 23rd, one thing they will be voting on is whether to bring followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane into the Knesset as part of a new party, “Religious Zionism.” The sudden political ascent of the Religious Zionism party was orchestrated by Benjamin Netanyahu in exchange for its support for keeping him in power, leading one Ha’aretz commentator to name him a “lobbyist for the Kahanist party.”

While Meir Kahane’s Kach Party was banned from the Knesset in 1988 for incitement to racism – and both Kach and another Kahanist group, Kahane Chai, have long been labeled Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. – Kahane’s Jewish supremacist agenda has over the years become woven into Israeli mainstream policies. His direct followers in the Religious Zionism party unabashedly promote his “outright fascist agenda” (in the words of +972 Magazine) and are now poised to enter the Knesset.

Panelists

Amjad Iraqi is an editor and writer at +972 Magazine. He is also a policy analyst at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and was previously an advocacy coordinator at Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. In addition to +972, he has contributed to the London Review of Books, The Guardian, and Le Monde Diplomatique, among other outlets. He tweets @aj_iraqi.

Prof. Rabbi Shaul Magid is Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, and the Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is also the rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue in Seaview, NY. He studied for his M.A. in Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, and earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1994. His rabbinical ordination is from Jerusalem in 1984. He is the author of many books including From Metaphysics to Midrash (Indiana University Press, 2008), American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Indiana University Press, 2013), Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University Press, 2014), Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism (Academic Studies press, 2019) and The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik’s Commentary to the New Testament (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). His new book Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical will be published by Princeton University Press in October 2021.

Natasha Roth-Rowland is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Virginia and a former editor at +972 Magazine. Her research focuses on the Israeli- and American-Jewish far right across the twentieth century. She previously spent several years living in Israel-Palestine, working as a translator and breaking news editor for various news outlets, and reporting from the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP). With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, Lara is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to her work at FMEP, Lara is a Contributing Writer at Jewish Currents and a non-resident fellow at the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). Prior to joining FMEP, Lara was the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now, and before that she was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, serving in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut. She holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and a Master’s degree from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service; in addition to English, Lara speaks French, Arabic, Spanish, (weak) Italian, and muddles through in Hebrew. She tweets @LaraFriedmanDC. 

Resources shared during the webinar: 

Follow our panelists: 

Resources from +972 Magazine on the upcoming Israeli elections: 

From Natasha Roth-Rowland: 

From Shaul Magid: 

Leadership of Otzma Yehudit / Jewish Power, which is vying for the Knesset as part of the Religious Zionism party: 

American Jewish objections to Kahanists entering the Knesset in 2019: 

Kahane’s 1985 draft bill to ban Jewish & Arab sexual relationships → https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/10/31/Kahane-can-push-law-to-ban-Arab-Israeli-sex-court-says/2890499582800/

On Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the “Religious Zionist” party: “Radical Settler, ‘Proud Homophobe’ and Wunderkind: Meet the New Leader of Israel’s Far Right” → https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium-radical-settler-proud-homophobe-and-wunderkind-new-leader-of-israel-s-far-right-1.6846001

For a new incarnation of Jewish Americans’ impact, see this new research about the Kohelet Forum, which is behind the Nation-State Law and funded by American Jews: “The U.S. Billionaires Secretly Funding the Right-Wing Effort to Reshape Israel” → https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-the-u-s-billionaires-secretly-funding-the-right-wing-effort-to-reshape-israel-1.9611994

On violence: 

On the political future: 

This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail (Mailman edition) and MHonArc.