‘Abhorrent’: State Department Slams Ben-Gvir Appearance at Kahane Memorial Event

Andrew Bernard

Itamar Ben-Gvir. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent; there is no other word for it,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday. “We remain concerned, as we said before, by the legacy of Kahane Chai and the continued use of rhetoric among violent, right-wing extremists. We’ve condemned incitements, we’ve condemned violence and racism in all of if its forms,” Price said.

Kahane, who was assassinated in New York in 1990, founded the Jewish Defense League and the Israeli political party Kach and was convicted in the US of a conspiracy to manufacture explosives and in Israel of plotting to blow up the Libyan embassy in Belgium. Kach and its splinter organization Kahane Chai were banned in Israel after they expressed support for Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli supporter of Kahane who murdered 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994. Kach and Kahane Chai were jointly designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department from 1997 until earlier this year. They remain on the US list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist organizations.

Writing on twitter before the event, Ben-Gvir said that he was participating despite his differences of opinion with Kahane because he appreciated “the love of Israel that [Kahane] had and his fight for the Jews of the Soviet Union and against antisemitism.” 

Ben-Gvir’s attempt to create ideological distance between himself and Kahane at the event on the question of expelling Arabs was met with boos from the crowd. Ben-Gvir said that unlike Kahane he does not believe that all Arabs need to be deported from Israel. He has previously said that only “disloyal” Arabs, including Arab members of the Knesset, need be deported

Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, an NGO which seeks to promote democratic values and equal rights in Israel, told The Algemeiner that the reaction from the crowd points to the potential instability Ben-Gvir’s newly-found electoral popularity.

“Extremism is much more fickle than it appears,” Kurtzer said. “My sense is that especially the young vote that was attracted to [Ben-Gvir’s party], that kind of anger, protest vote, at least publicly tended to talk a lot about crime in Israel, and the ways in which the police system was simply not responding to a sense of fear on the streets. […] It’s a very populist move to focus on crime and law and order. It may also just reflect particular trends of this election. You have no idea whether [Ben-Gvir] and Smotrich are able to stay together, able to stay in government. Next election they may be back down to the five or six seats where they were.”

The inclusion of Ben-Gvir and MK Bezalel Smotrich, both members of the Religious Zionism party, in a future Benjamin Netanyahu-led government has been a point of concern for the US. Ben-Gvir has said he will seek the Ministry of Public Safety responsible for the police, while Smotrich is seeking to be Minister of Defense.

Speaking to The Algemeiner last week, former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said that he thinks it’s unlikely that the Biden Administration will directly engage with either of them. “I highly doubt that the administration will work with Ben-Gvir, certainly, and likely Smotrich as well. They are advocates of racist and bigoted policies, they engage in anti-Arab incitement,” Shapiro said.

Jlem says 90% of Iran’s influence in Syria is destroyed

ILTV Israel News

News From Israel- November 09, 2022

ILTV Israel News

Ancient inscription from City of David may mention king Hezekiah

JERUSALEM POST STAFF

The tunnel once brought water from the spring outside the city as a safety measure against sieges or other dangerous situations.

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KING HEZEKIAH in a 17th century painting by unknown artist, in the choir of Sankta Maria Kyrka in Ahus, Sweden. / (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A fragment of a stone inscription believed to mention the biblical King Hezekiah has been recently uncovered in the Hezekiah Tunnel underneath Jerusalem’s City of David by archaeologist Eli Shukron and University of Haifa professor Gershon Galil, according to the Biblical Archeological Society.

The tunnel once brought water from the spring outside the city as a safety measure against sieges or other instances where venturing outside would be dangerous.

What does it say?
The limestone fragment dates back to the 8th century BCE and is thought to be part of a much larger monument. It contains six letters written in paleo-Hebrew script – two lines of three letters each.

The letters on the first line are qyh. It is impossible to know for sure exactly what word these letters were a part of, but there is a distinct possibility that the full word was once Hizqyhw, or Hizqiyahu – Hezekiah.

The seal impression of King Hezekiah unearthed during the Ophel excavations at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount / (credit: COURTESY OF DR. EILAT MAZAR AND OURIA TADMOR)

The second line has two letters, followed by a dot and then a third letter. This told scholars that the first two letters were the end of one word and the third letter was the beginning of another word. Some posited that the first word, which ended in kh was brkh or berecha – pool. This inference, though impossible to prove, is lent some credence due to the face that the freshwater flowing through Hezekiah’s Tunnel lets out into the well-known Pool of Siloam.

How does Iran transport its drones to Russia?

JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claim to show the route used by Iran to deliver its drones to Russia, in a recent report.
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A drone is launched during a military exercise in an undisclosed location in Iran, in this handout image obtained on August 25, 2022. / (photo credit: Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)

In recent weeks, Ukraine and the West have been accusing Tehran of supplying Moscow with Iranian-made drones. A report released on Thursday by Sprotyv, a website affiliated with the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, claims to show the route used by Iran to deliver its drones to Russia.

The report claims that Iran uses four airlines, three of which are state-owned and one that is affiliated with the Iranian regime, as well as naval transports using vessels of companies affiliated with the IRGC.

The three state-owned airlines are Iran Air, which is controlled by the Iranian Infrastructure Ministry, Pouya Air, which is part of the IRGC, and Saha Airlines, which is part of the Iranian Air Force. The other airline allegedly involved is Mahan Air, an Iranian airline that in the past faced sanctions by the United States Department of Treasury.

The report also claims that the sea routes are going through the Caspian Sea as well as others. No less than 200 disassembled drones are expected to arrive in Russia by sea during November.

Ukraine’s actions against the Russia-Iran arms trade
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of using Iranian drones to attack Ukraine’s energy sector, in a recent speech to the Ukrainian people.

Parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle, what Ukrainian authorities consider to be an Iranian made suicide drone Shahed-136 are seen at a site of Russian strike in Kharkiv (credit: REUTERS)

On November 1, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that “since September 13, when the [Russian] occupiers first used Iranian kamikaze drones against Ukraine, the Ukrainian defense forces have shot down more than 300 such UAVs.”

These announcements came after the ministry issued a public notice requesting information regarding the supplying of Iranian weapons to the Russian Federation.

“We ask to provide any information that will help to determine logistical routes of the supply of the Iranian weapon and to identify the specific persons responsible for the supply,” it said in the announcement.