[News] Israeli press expose Jewish 'terrorists'

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Israeli press expose Jewish 'terrorists'
by Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank
Sunday 05 September 2004 2:15 PM GMT


Israeli media have exposed a paramilitary Jewish group that has been 
terrorising Palestinian civilians in the West Bank with tacit approval from 
the Israeli army.

State-run Israeli radio, Reshet Bet, announced on Sunday that members of 
the group, known as the Hebrew Brigade" are armed with automatic rifles and 
equipped with jeeps and vicious attack dogs.



Quoting unidentified security sources, the radio said the group is made up 
of dozens of erstwhile cadres of the Kach movement, the "terrorist group" 
founded by Rabbi Meir Kahana and dedicated to the destruction of the 
Palestinian community in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.



Kahana, a one-time member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, called 
for the "extirpation" or "extermination" of non-Jews in Israel and the 
occupied territories, following the example of the ancient Israelites who 
ethnically cleansed the Canaanites as narrated in the Torah.



Kahana also advocated that democracy and Judaism were completely 
incompatible and that non-Jews could never attain equality in a truly 
Jewish state.



Kach has been declared a "terrorist group" by both Israel and the United 
States.

In 1995, a member of Kach named Egal Amir assassinated former Israeli Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Rabin for signing the Oslo Accords with the Palestine 
Liberation Organisation.


Ideological affinity

However, since Ariel Sharon came to power in Israel in 2001, the Israeli 
government, and especially the powerful military establishment, has been 
dealing rather leniently with Kach and similar far right groups, ostensibly 
because of the ideological affinity between Sharon's party Likud and the 
far-right parties.



A Hebrew newspaper, the Ma'ariv, published a report on the resurfacing 
vigilante group last week.

The Kach vigilantes, as they are commonly known, erect surprise roadblocks 
and checkpoints on roads used by Palestinian motorists, using attack dogs, 
the newspaper reported.



Sometimes, the extremists reportedly serve as a "back-up force" by 
"assisting" the army in "keeping law and order" by harassing Palestinian 
civilians.


Blackmail

Some members of the well-organised group have reportedly threatened and 
blackmailed Israeli security officers living in their respective settlements.



The Israeli army has acknowledged, rather begrudgingly, the existence of 
the group but denied that it was operating under its supervision.



However, army spokesperson Eitan Arusi confirmed that "those people operate 
within the settlements and their main function is to prevent Palestinians 
from infiltrating their respective communities".



Arusi told Aljazeera.net that the army was ultimately responsible for the 
activities of the vigilantes.



Arusi's statements, however, were contradicted by another army spokesman, 
quoted earlier by Israeli radio, who sought to distance the army from the 
group.



Dangerous militia



A number of Knesset members have castigated the Israeli government for 
allowing the extremists to function.



"These are a bunch of killers and vile terrorists, I can't understand why 
our government allows them to function freely in the streets of the West 
Bank," said Ran Cohen, a member of the newly-founded neo-leftist party, Yahad.



Cohen, who described the group as a dangerous militia, called on the 
Israeli justice system to force the government to outlaw the group and end 
their activities.



One Israeli legal expert, Moshe Hangbi, accused the Israeli government of 
"indulging in a serious breach of the law".



"This terrorist organisation [Kach] is supposed to be outside the confines 
of the law since it was outlawed and declared a terrorist organisation in 
1994," he said.

"The fact that it is allowed to function flies in the face of Israeli 
authorities," he added.

Attacks and massacres



Kach has a long record of attacking and harassing Palestinian civilians.


In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the right-wing extremists placed bombs 
in the cars of three Palestinian mayors, causing the legs of the former 
mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shaka'a, to be amputated.



In 1982, two armed men belonging to Kach attacked the campus of the 
University of Hebron with machine guns and hand grenades, killing and 
injuring dozens of students.



Also in the early 1980s, Kach members sought to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque 
in Jerusalem, using ground-to-ground missiles allegedly stolen from Israeli 
army barracks.



The bloodiest act against Palestinians by the movement took place in 1994 
when Baruch Goldstein, an American immigrant, cold bloodedly murdered 29 
unarmed worshippers while they were praying at the Ibrahimi mosque in 
downtown Hebron.

The worshippers were searched and had to pass through metal detectors 
before entering the prayer area.



Justification

The Kach leadership, along with the leaders of the settler movement of Gush 
Emunim, then enthusiastically supported the massacre, evoking a Talmudic 
edict that a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail.



Since the beginning of the intifada four years ago, extremists affiliated 
with Kach and other right-wing groups, such as Kahana Hay (Kahana is 
alive), have killed and injured hundreds of Palestinian civilians.



The same groups have also planned and carried out attacks on Arab schools 
in East Jerusalem and the Hebron region.

Aljazeera
By Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/67C726C2-CD4A-40A3-B2AE-182E71838762.htm 


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