Palestinian rights activists have expressed concern over the US plans to remove a violent, far-right Israeli group from Washington’s list of “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTO), warning that such a move may empower members of Kahane Chai.
A US official confirmed that the State Department has alerted Congress of plans to delist the organization, formerly known as “Kach,” because it is no longer active.
While detractors admit that the organization — established by ultranationalist, US-born Israeli politician Meir Kahane – is technically defunct, they claim adherents to its philosophy are nonetheless active in both the US and Israel.
Before forming Kach in Israel, Kahane established the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in the United States, a militantly pro-Israel group implicated in multiple violent assaults on US territory, including the 1985 death of Palestinian-American leader Alex Odeh in California.
“Kach and Kahane Chai splintered into various groups and political parties that continue to espouse, inspire and carry out acts of violence against Palestinian civilians,” said William Lafi Youmans, a George Washington University associate professor working on a documentary on Odeh’s killing
“Rather than removing the designation, the State Department should have updated and expanded it. Simply dropping these groups from the list is going to be seen as the United States continuing its light approach towards right-wing violence against Palestinians,” he told Al Jazeera.
Odeh, a regional director of the civil rights organization American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), was murdered in a blast as he opened his office in Santa Ana, Orange County.
Although no one has been convicted of the killing, the ADC and Arab-American organisations have long accused Kahane’s JDL of being behind it. Numerous media stories have also linked the organisation to the murder.
Over the years, campaigners have lobbied Washington to extradite JDL members living in Israel and illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory who were recognised by law enforcement as probable suspects in Odeh’s murder.
Kahane, who was elected to Israel’s Knesset in 1984 on a platform that publicly pushed for the expulsion of Palestinians from their country, was assassinated in New York in 1990. However, his followers continued to carry out violent acts even after his death.
