Kahanism
Kahanism is a religious Zionist ideology based on the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach political party in Israel. Kahane held the view that most Arabs living in Israel are the enemies of Jews and Israel itself, and he believed that a Jewish, Halakhic state, in which non-Jews would have no voting rights, should be created.
The Kach party has been banned by the Israeli government. In 2004, the United States Department of State designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In 2022, it was removed from the US terror blacklist due to "insufficient evidence" of the group's ongoing activity, but it remains a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
The Kahanist Otzma Yehudit party won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election and is a member of the thirty-seventh government of Israel. However, it left the governing coalition between 21 January and 19 March 2025 because the government had agreed to the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire in the Gaza war. The party, and the Kahanist movement as a whole, have been described as espousing Jewish supremacy and fascism.
History
The Kach party saw electoral success in 1984, winning 26,000 votes, equivalent to one seat. Early polls after the election predicted that the Kach party would become the third-largest party, winning as many as 12 seats in the next election. In August 1985, the Kach party was barred from participating in elections. Some Kahanist groups, such as the Sicarii, began pursuing their political goals through violent means instead. On November 5, 1990, Meir Kahane was assassinated by El-Sayyid A. Nosair, who was associated with terror cells that eventually became al-Qaeda.Kahane's assassination led to the splintering of the Kach party, with Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane leading Kahane Chai from Kfar Tapuach and Kach led by Baruch Marzel, who eventually became a member of Otzma Yehudit. In 1992 both groups were banned completely from participating in elections. In 1994, due to the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre committed by Baruch Goldstein, they were declared illegal terrorist organizations by the Israeli government. After the ban, Kahane Chai's leaders created an extraparliamentary advocacy group, "The Kahane Movement", which archived media content from Kahane online.
The next election where Kahanists received political representation was in 2009, with Michael Ben-Ari, who ran on the National Union ticket. Ben-Ari split from the National Union after the election, forming Otzma Yehudit. Otzma Yehudit failed to pass the electoral threshold in the 2013 Israeli election.
Kahanism gained no political legitimacy until the April 2019 Israeli election. As a result of the 2018–2022 Israeli political crisis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to gain seats by appealing to Kahanist voters by making a deal with the Jewish Home party to have them run on a joint list with Otzma Yehudit as the Union of Right-Wing Parties. The party received enough seats for Otzma Yehudit to be represented, but Ben Ari, who was supposed to represent the fifth slot on the Union of Right-Wing Parties list, was barred from running after the list was submitted. Otzma Yehudit eventually achieved parliamentary representation in 2021, when Itamar Ben-Gvir won a seat as part of a joint list with the Religious Zionist Party.
Otzma Yehudit won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election, forming what has been called the most right-wing government in Israeli history. In November 2022, after a memorial event for Kahane attended by Ben-Gvir, the U.S. State Department hosted a press briefing, saying, "Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent. There is no other word for it. It is abhorrent." The party left the coalition on 21 January 2025 because the government had agreed to a ceasefire in the Gaza war. That ceasefire collapsed on 18 March, and the party rejoined the government the next day.
Ideology
Kahanism is a religious Zionist ideology that denotes the controversial positions espoused by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane proposed that the State of Israel should enforce Jewish law, as codified by Maimonides, under which non-Jews who wish to dwell in Israel would have three options: remain as "resident strangers" with all rights but national ones, which would require non-Jews to accept resident-stranger status with all rights but political ones. Those unwilling to accept such a status will be required to leave the country with full compensation, and those who refuse to do even that will be forcibly removed.Kahanism's central claim is that the vast majority of the Arabs of Israel are and will continue to be enemies of Jews and Israel itself, and that a Jewish theocratic state, governed by Halakha law, absent of a voting non-Jewish population that includes Israel, Palestine, areas of modern-day Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, should be created.
Allegations of fascism
Kahanism has controversially been described as a form of neo-fascism. News outlets and organizations such as Haaretz, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, and +972 Magazine have called it explicitly fascist. Kahanism's ideological tenets of violent expansionism, extreme racism, and ultranationalist messaging have been cited as proof that it is a form of Jewish fascism. Israeli scholar has described Kahanism as "quasi-fascism" due to its overt racism. Kahane's appeal that the "enemy is within" has been called a "classic position of fascists".Kahane denied these allegations throughout this life, instead calling his opponents "leftists" and "fascists". He likened his struggle for an ethnically pure Israel to the Jewish people's struggle against fascist powers during the Holocaust. Some doubt the label's accuracy; historian Matthew N. Lyons argues that Kahanism's religious fundamentalism could be more accurately described as "religious nationalism".
Criticism and legal action
Since 1985, the Israeli government has outlawed political parties espousing Kahane's ideology as racist, and forbids their participation in the government. The Kach party was banned from running for the Knesset in 1988, while the two Kahanist movements formed after Kahane's assassination in 1990 were ruled illegal terrorist organizations in 1994 and the groups subsequently disbanded. Followers with militant Kahanist beliefs remain active, as listed below. In 2001, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called the official Kahanist website a hate site, saying it espoused prejudiced views in which "Arabs generally and Palestinians in particular are vilified".U.S. terror designation
The United States added Kahane Chai to its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list in 1997.In 2004, the U.S. State Department designated Kach a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In 2022, it was removed from the U.S. terror blacklist due to "insufficient evidence" of the group's ongoing activity in the most recent five-yearly review, but it remains a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
Canadian terror designation
The Canadian government has listed Kahane Chai as a terrorist entity since 2005.In February 2025, Eli Schwarz, a self-confessed member of Kahane Chai, was arrested and charged with making threats at a demonstration in Toronto. Police seized clothing branded with the Kahane Chai name and crest, a soft-body armour vest, a rifle, a scope, and ammunition from his residence.
Kahanist groups
Notable Kahanists
Baruch Goldstein
The deadliest Jewish terrorist attack occurred when Baruch Goldstein, supporter of Kach, shot and killed 29 Muslim worshipers, and wounded another 150, at the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, in 1994. This was described as a case of Jewish religious terrorism by Mark Juergensmeyer. Goldstein was a medical doctor who grew up in Brooklyn and was educated at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. He resettled in the Kiryat Arba settlement in the West Bank, and was politically active for years. Goldstein saw Kahane as a hero, and was Kahane's campaign manager when he ran for the Israeli parliament through the Kach party. When Goldstein was threatened with a court-martial for refusing to treat non-Jewish soldiers in the Israeli Defence Force, he declared: "I am not willing to treat any non-Jew. I recognize as legitimate only two religious authorities: Maimonides and Kahane."Goldstein was denounced "with shocked horror" by Orthodox Jews, and most Israelis denounced Goldstein as insane. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the attack, calling Goldstein a "degenerate murderer", "a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism". At the same time, Goldstein's actions were praised by some extremist settlers; Yochay Ron said that he "felt good" when he heard the news, and also said that Jews were "at war with the Arabs" and "all Arabs who live here are a danger to us... they threaten the very existence of the Jewish community on the West Bank." Goldstein and other religious settlers at Beit Hadassah believe that the biblical lands on the West Bank are sacred, that Jews are required by God to occupy them, and that the presence of Muslims desecrates the Holy Land. After this attack, members of the Kach Party praised Goldstein's actions, and in the ensuing political turmoil, the Knesset banned Kach in Israel. The Shamgar Commission concluded that Goldstein acted alone.