Under the new moniker of Otzma Yehudit, the followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane are ostensibly no longer a bunch of wild weeds or a gang of fascist and racist thugs operating under the radar among their target audience. They are now at the forefront of a new Israeli discourse unlike anything the country has heard since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 or Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of Muslim worshippers the preceding year in Hebron. It was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who granted them this legitimacy, letting the genie out of the bottle with his own bare hands.
On Feb. 3, it was the Likud, not Netanyahu in name, who called on the parties on the right to join forces with Otzma Yehudit. Netanyahu was prudent about that — fearing general public reaction to the ultra-nationalistic group — but once the unification between the national-religious HaBayit HaYehudi and Otzma Yehudit was finalized, Netanyahu returned to his old ways. Even the harsh reaction by his longtime admirers in AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has not deterred him.
Netanyahu went on the offensive, attacking the left and comparing Otzma Yehudit to the Arab parties in Israel. “Bringing the right-wing parties under a single roof is illegitimate, but taking steps to bring in agitators and spies acting against Israel is legitimate. That is the height of absurdity,” he claimed. The disciples of Kahane and admirers of the mass murderer Goldstein couldn’t have found themselves a better advocate and defender.
Meanwhile, Itamar Ben Gvir, an attorney and holder of the eighth slot on the Union of Right-Wing Parties list, has been appearing in television studios to disseminate his ideology. It should be remembered that days before Rabin was assassinated, Ben Gvir boasted that he had been able to steal the emblem from Rabin’s secure Cadillac. On the Kan network on Feb. 23 when asked on a politics show about the picture of Goldstein hanging in his home, Ben Gvir chose to play dumb, claiming that it is not because Goldstein murdered Arabs, but because he saved Jewish lives as a doctor.
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