Court rules against Israeli extremists

[Scurrilous]

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"The U.S. government had sufficient basis to designate an Israeli extremist group a foreign terrorist organization, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The State Department "reasonably found" in 2003 that the group Kahane Chai made death threats against Israeli police and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."

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"Kahane Chai apparently assumes "that if the record does not expressly tie Kahane Chai to a threat of assassination," the appeals court said, "then the Secretary may not designate it" as a foreign terrorist organization. The court said "we do not read" federal law that narrowly.

"The record need provide only a sufficient basis for a reasonable person to conclude that Kahane Chai was likely behind such a threat," said the opinion by Appeals Court Judge Douglas Ginsburg. Appeals judges David Sentelle and Stephen Williams joined in the decision. All three judges were appointed to the court during the Reagan administration.

The decision also applied to Kach and Kahane.org, two entities the appeals court said were alias organizations to Kahane Chai."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Kahane_Chai.html



Kahane Chai

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Aliases: Kach

Base of Operation: Israel; West Bank/Gaza

Founding Philosophy: Kahane Chai is an offshoot of Kach, the religious extremist group formed by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Following Kahane’s assassination in 1990, his son Binyamin Kahane formed Kahane Chai (which means Kahane lives). Although Kahane Chai and Kach are designated separately, Kahane Chai is essentially an alias for Kach as the two groups have a shared core leadership and are referred to interchangeably in the media. The differences between Kach and Kahane Chai centered around personal squabbles between Binyamin Kahane and the leaders of Kach, but such differences have disappeared since Binyamin Kahane was killed in 2000.

Kahane Chai, along with Kach, was banned from politics in Israel in 1994 following Dr. Baruch Goldstein’s killing of 29 Muslims in the Cave of the Patriarchs. Goldstein was a member of Kach and statements in support of his actions by Kach and Kahane Chai led to their ban. Despite this ban, Kahane Chai is still very active in Israeli society and its leaders openly recruit new members and criticize government policy.

Kahane Chai is a violent group that aims to reinstate the ancient Biblical kingdom in Israel. It aims for expulsion of Arabs from Israeli territory and the creation of a Jewish theocracy. The group has been linked to a bombing attempt at the schoolyard of an Arab all-girls school and has been designated as a terrorist group by many foreign governments due to its constant intimidation of Arabs throughout Israel. The group has in recent years refrained from major terrorist activity as it is attempting to convince the Israeli government to lift the ban on Kahane Chai.

Current Goals: Kahane Chai has recently increased its level of activity in protest of Ariel Sharon’s plan to dismantle settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Viewing such a step as a violation of the principle that Jews deserve control of the holy land, the group has issued many ominous warnings. The more serious threats levied by Kahane Chai involve threats on the lives of politicians who support the disengagement plan as well as announcements of plans to derail train tracks in protest of the new policy.

http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=3750