Back in the Day, I worked in a New York TV newsroom where “if it bled, it led.” During the late Sixties and early Seventies, one of our most reliable sources of organized mayhem was the Jewish Defense League, led by the ultra-Orthodox rabbi Meir Kahane. He preached a violent form of Zionism, and sent black-clad young thugs out to attack opponents of Israel. I vividly recall one incident when JDL members broke up a small pro-Palestinian march near the UN, screaming “There is no Palestine, Arab dog!”
Mainstream Judaism in New York wanted nothing to do with Kahane, so in 1973 he moved to Israel, where his political party was soon banned for its racist, undemocratic views. He returned to New York where he was shot and killed by an Egyptian-American in 1990. Kahane got more than his share of attention, but he’d always been on the political fringe, and I figured he would soon be forgotten.
Fast forward to 2024, and Kahane is being hailed as a prophet by many in Israel. Hard-line defense minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Kahane’s grave this week on the anniversary of his assassination. Hundreds more Kahanists gathered in Jerusalem, excited over what they see as a chance to realize his vision for the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel. Some wore shirts reading “Jews: Revenge” or “Transfer Now." They even have a song in praise of their prophet. The words are something like this, in translation by the newspaper Haaretz:
“He saw what was coming; he shouted, he yelled, he warned/ In this land there is only room for the Jewish people. Kahane was right, Kahane was right.”
The memorial rally featured crude jokes about Arabs, calling them savages. It’s a curious form of racism — a distinction between two peoples who started out as half-brothers, Isaac and Ishmael, the sons of Abraham.
In the Bible: Abraham’s wife Sarah was jealous of Ishmael’s mother, the slave Hagar, and didn’t want the two boys to grow up as equals. She made Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael into the desert, to die of hunger and thirst. But the Lord had mercy and fed them, and promised to make a great nation from Ishmael. (Genesis 21). The Lord kept his promise.
The other night in a dream, I was visited for the first time in my life by the prophet Mohammed. A quiet man, he surveyed the ruins of Gaza with equanimity. He’s not going away.
If and when this Nakba is complete, there may be a million homeless Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Defense minister Ben Gvi hopes they will go into “voluntary exile,” something like Mitt Romney’s fantasy of “self-deportation.” Others talk of “forced transfer,” but can’t say to where. Israel is now creating a humanitarian disaster in its own land, and will have to deal with the dispossessed.
What would Kahane do? And what will Mohammed answer?
Copyright 2024 by Tom Phillips
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