The Zionist Terror Network Background and Operation of the Jewish Defense League and other Criminal Zionist Groups
The Zionist Terror Network Background and Operation of the Jewish Defense League and other Criminal Zionist Groups [back] Anti-Defamation League Jewish Defense League The Zionist Terror Network Background and Operation of the Jewish Defense League and other Criminal Zionist Groups a book prepared by Mark Weber 1993 revised Introduction Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League Rabbi Kahane's Ideology Support for Kahane and the JDLZionist Criminal Activities: A General Overview Alex Odeh Murder Official Confirmation of JDL Terrorism Mordechai Levy and the Jewish Defense Organization Irv Rubin Violence Against Holocaust Revisionists Target: Institute for Historical Review Fire-Bombing Arson Attack JDL Harassment of IHR Conference JDL Thugs Attack Young Jewish Revisionist Violence in Europe The Murder of François Duprat The Israel Connection Tagar/Betar Robert Faurisson Other Terrorist Incidents in Europe Conclusion Introduction This booklet documents the background and criminal activities of Jewish Zionist terrorist groups, and especially the Jewish Defense League. Particular emphasis is given here to terror -- including murder -- against "thought criminals" who question the Holocaust story that six million Jews were systematically killed during the Second World War. Thomas Marcellus, Director of the Institute for Historical Review, sorts damaged files from the wreckage of the devastating arson attack on July 4, 1984, against the southern California research and publication center. Zionist terrorists openly proclaim an arrogant Jewish-supremacist ideology and acknowledge their readiness to use violence against those who disagree with them. With a well-documented record of bigotry and crime, they pose a serious danger to our society, and to men and women everywhere who treasure freedom. Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League The most zealous non-governmental Zionist terrorist organization has been the Jewish Defense League. Its activists have been involved in a wide range of crimes, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has repeatedly cited it as a criminal terrorist group. The Jewish Defense League was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Born Martin David Kahane in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York, he was the first-born son of an orthodox rabbi who was active in the "revisionist" movement of Zionist hard-liner Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky and other leaders of his movement were guests at the Kahane household while Martin (Meir) was a boy. As a youth, Kahane became an active member of the Jewish-supremacist Betar movement, which Jabotinsky had founded in 1925. Kahane's first arrest came in 1947, when he was fifteen, for leading a group of Betar youth in an attack against visiting British foreign minister Ernest Bevin. (1) Two of Jabotinsky's most fervent followers went on to gain notoriety as leaders of Zionist terror groups, and, later, as prime ministers of Israel: Menachem Begin, who once headed the Irgun group, and Yitzhak Shamir, who headed the Lehi group (Stern gang). Shamir, for example, played a crucial role in the Lehi murder in November 1944 of British Middle East envoy Lord Moyne, and in the September 1948 assassination of Swedish United Nations peace mediator Count Folke-Bernadotte. (2) For a time in the 1960s, Kahane led a double life. He lived and worked under the name of Michael King, keeping this identity secret even from his wife. During this period, he later related, he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For the FBI he spied on the right-wing John Birch Society as well as on various left-wing student groups. (3) Posing as the non-Jewish Michael King, he had affairs with a number of young women he picked up in New York bars. One of them was Gloria Jean D'Argenio, a (non-Jewish) 22-year-old model who worked under the name of Estelle Evans. After their meeting in 1966, they promptly began an affair. Never revealing his true identity, he even proposed marriage. After Kahane/King broke off the relationship a few weeks later, she attempted suicide by hurling herself into the East River, dying two days later (on Kahane's 34th birthday). (4) Kahane's life changed dramatically in 1968, when he and several colleagues founded the Jewish Defense League. Brandishing guns and provocative slogans ("Every Jew a .22," "Never Again"), Kahane's JDL quickly attracted considerable media attention. Kahane pointedly exploited rising anti-black sentiment among Jews in the New York area. (5) Kahane and his new organization received important and probably crucial support from two powerful allies: Israel's right-wing Herut political party and the New York Mafia. Between December 1969 and August 1972, Kahane's JDL -- with important support and guidance from Menachem Begin's Herut party in Israel, top officers of Israel's Mossad secret service, and several wealthy American Jewish businessmen -- carried out a campaign of criminal attacks against Soviet Russian diplomats and other Soviet targets in the USA. The goal was to focus attention on and generate sympathy for Soviet Jewry, and to damage relations between the United States and Soviet Russia. (6) On May 12, 1971, Kahane and a dozen other JDL members were arrested by federal agents for conspiracy to manufacture explosives. One day later, Kahane announced an alliance with a group founded by Mafia boss Joseph Colombo, Jr., a one-time killer who had risen to head the Colombo crime syndicate. "Kahane received substantial aid from the New York Mafia," writes Israeli journalist Yair Kotler in his biography of the JDL founder. Until Colombo's murder in 1971, relations between Kahane and the New York City mob boss were very close, and the two criminal chiefs worked closely together. (7) Kahane claimed to have spent a total of three years in American prisons as a result of his militant activities. (8) During the early 1970s, Kahane abandoned the JDL and moved to Israel -- returning on occasional visits to raise money. Building on the international notoriety he had gained as JDL leader, in 1976 he launched his radical Kach party. In 1984 he was elected to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) as his party's only deputy. Meanwhile, the JDL's New York chapter collapsed, and splinter groups emerged with names such as the "Jewish Direct Action," the "United Jewish Underground," "Save Our Israel Land," and the "Jewish Defenders." (9) Kahane was assassinated on November 5, 1990, while addressing a meeting of supporters at a hotel in midtown Manhattan, New York City. (10) Rabbi Kahane's Ideology In numerous speeches and essays, and in several books, Meir Kahane preached an arrogant and even genocidal message of Jewish supremacy and ruthless Zionism. For the JDL leader and his many fervent followers, any and all measures to further Jewish survival and welfare -- including terror, dispossession and murder -- are entirely justified. (11) Typical of his passionate and outspoken prose style is a representative essay by Kahane that appeared in 1980 in a leading Jewish community paper. He wrote: (12) ...Vengeance is a fundamental Jewish concept that is a precept, injunction, commandment for the Jew...Vengeance becomes, thanks to the gentilized and perplexed era in which we live, a maligned thing...Let the government of Israel, which is responsible for the lives of its citizens, make the streets, buses, shops and homes of the Ishmaelites [Palestinians] perpetual places of terror and stark insecurity...Wipe away the bitter degradation of God's name that is symbolized by Arab refusal to bow to Jewish sovereignty. A truly Jewish government is one that understands the need to...burn out the desecration by removing, burning out, the evil that is the Arab nation in our midst. In another essay, this one published in 1973, Kahane emphasized Jewish invincibility. The day will come, he promised, when all non-Jews would acknowledge the superiority of the Chosen people: (13) The Jewish people cannot ever be destroyed, but rather they and their G-d of History will emerge in days to come triumphant over the evils and foolishness of all other nations. Zion will and must emerge as the mount to which all peoples will turn and the Jewish L-rd will be the One before Whom all knees bend... In an essay published in 1982, Kahane stressed the pitiless, either-or, us-or-them, nature of the struggle between Jews and their "enemies": (14) Let us look at events through Jewish eyes...Lebanon:...A war was begun [by Israel] against a "Palestinian" enemy -- an entire people -- which seeks to wipe out the Jewish state and the vast majority of its Jews. It was...a war unto the death, the utter destruction of the enemy, the instilling of total fear, terror, until he capitulates and acknowledges the L-rd. Jewish and liberal democratic values are incompatible, Kahane often insisted: "I have said it a million times. Western democracy as we know it is incompatible with Zionism...The idea of a democratic Jewish state is nonsense." (15) On another occasion he stated: "Democracy is for people who don't have the truth. No earthly, temporal government has any relevance to the actions of the Jew when its orders and regulations are contrary to [Jewish] Torah law...Judaism has never been a democratic form of society." (16) A virtual obsession for Kahane was the brutal wartime treatment of Europe's Jews. "Never Again," the JDL slogan, pointedly referred to the Holocaust experience. In Kahane's view, every non-Jew is a potential Nazi murderer. "As long as one gentile lives opposite one Jew, the possibility of a Holocaust remains," he wrote. (17) The moral measure of every action, Kahane stressed, must be "is it good for the Jews?" Failure to act in accordance with this principle, he emphasized, will lead to "a new Auschwitz." (18) Meir Kahane in 1979 at his headquarters in Jerusalem, the "Musuem of the Potential Holocaust." (Photo from The False Prophet by Robert Friedman) In his biography of Kahane, author Robert Friedman relates some of the quirkiness of the militant rabbi's personality. Recalling his first meeting with him at his "Museum of the Potential Holocaust" in Jerusalem, Friedman wrote: "It struck me on that first encounter that Kahane was a man obsessed with sex and violence. He chattered incessantly about Arab men sleeping with Jewish women." (19) Kahane publicly called Arabs "dogs," (20) and on at least one occasion promised to eliminate Arabs from Israel "like bug spray on these cockroaches." (21) In numerous speeches, and in a 1980 book entitled They Must Go, Kahane outlined his plan for the forcible mass expulsion (or "transfer") of Palestinian Arabs from the "Land of Israel" -- that is, "greater Israel" (including the West Bank territory seized by Israel in 1967). Kahane's worldview was summed up in the "statement of principles" of the Kach movement, which he founded and headed. It begins with an arrogant description of "the Jewish People" as "special, chosen, holy and supreme." (22) A primary Kach goal is the transfer of the Arabs from all parts of Eretz Israel [the enlarged "Land of Israel"]. The Arabs' presence in Israel ensures hatred, disturbances, and bloodshed. It is a time bomb, threatening the existence of the Zionist enterprise. The Arabs living in Eretz Israel must therefore be transferred to the Arab countries. Kahane and his supporters agitated for an Israeli law that would criminalize sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. (At it is, Jews were already forbidden from marrying non-Jews in Israel.) The proposed law would also outlaw a broad range of social contacts between Jews and non-Jews, including mixed schools, community centers, beaches, and even neighborhoods. (23) Kahane and his sympathizers have never been particularly bothered by the parallels between his proposed law and Hitler's "Nuremberg Laws" of 1935, which similarly banned sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews. (24) As Kahane and other hardline Zionists have persistently pointed out, Jewish religious law clearly forbids Jews to marry non-Jews. (25) Similarly, Kahane never tired of citing Jewish religious scripture in support of his ruthless, uncompromising message. As American Jewish author Lenni Brenner has acknowledged, Kahane and his supporters are (26) absolutely correct in insisting that Judaism was a tribal religion, replete with hereditary priests performing animal sacrifices. It was genocidal to the Amalekites, and tried to do so toward the Canaanites. There was much else that was fanatic and racist. Support for Kahane and the JDL Few prominent Israeli or American Jewish community leaders were ever willing publicly to support Kahane, and major American Jewish organizations -- such as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the American Jewish Congress -- took care to disavow Kahane and the JDL. At the same time, though -- and in spite of his well-documented criminal record and his message of undisguised bigotry and arrogance -- Kahane and the JDL enjoyed sympathy and considerable support from a surprisingly broad cross-section of American Jewry. Over the years, American Jewish businessmen gave millions of dollars to Kahane. (27) Zionist terrorism is the subject of a front-cover feature article in the New York weekly Village Voice, November 12, 1985. At the conclusion of an address given in 1971 at a prosperous synagogue in Potomac, Maryland, during which the JDL leader praised the fire-bombing of a car, the well-to-do congregation gave Kahane a standing ovation. (28) Jackie Mason, a prominent American comedian, publicly supported Kahane and performed at a fund-raising benefit for the JDL in early 1972. "Democratic principles shouldn't apply to Israel like they do to America," explained Mason (like Kahane, an ordained Rabbi). (29) At a single fundraiser dinner in Boston in 1986, more than $20,000 was reportedly collected for Kahane. (30) An indication of Kahane's acceptance by even major American political figures came in 1972, when the JDL leader was invited by US Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson to stand together with him on a New York City stage. This was during the powerful politician's campaign for the Democratic party's presidential nomination. (31) Another prominent JDL supporter was US Congressman Mario Biaggi, who represented the Bronx in Washington. (32) A leading Jewish community paper, the sensational Brooklyn-based weekly Jewish Press (with a circulation of 130,000 to 160,000), took on Kahane as an editor and columnist, giving him an influential forum for his strident and often deliberately mendacious writing. (33) America's most influential daily paper, the (Jewish-owned) New York Times, gave Kahane a measure of respectability and legitimacy by publishing essays by him on its widely read "op ed" opinion page. (34) Kahane's book, They Must Go, which calls for the genocidal mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their ancient homeland, was published in 1980 by the "mainstream" New York publishing firm of Grosset & Dunlap. American television, newspapers and magazines never subjected Kahane to even a fraction of the criticism and contempt they so readily directed against non-Jewish militants in groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the "Aryan Nations" or "The Order," which preached comparable messages and goals. In Israel, Kahane won support and even a measure of fanatical devotion from many "ordinary" Jews, particularly "Sephardic" Jews from the Arab world (who now make up a majority of Israel's Jewish population). Describing a visit by Kahane to the Israeli city of Afula in July 1985, during a period of Jewish-Arab tension there, journalist Yair Kotler wrote: (35) His appearance was enough to heat up the atmosphere and incite the curly-haired young people on the street corners, who see each Arab as a potential threat to their social standing. Those on the street corners shouted "Kahane the savior!"' They attacked Arabs, both from within Israel [proper] and the [occupied] territories who came to Afula to work. They threw stones at Arab cars ... They looted shops. The mob continued to shout "Kahane, Kahane! Death to the Arabs," sweeping before it everyone it encountered ... His [Kahane's] distorted face was seen by millions of viewers in Israel and throughout the world as he shouted, "The only answer is to throw the Arabs out. I want the Arabs out, out, out!" The city was a volcano. Kahane had set the tone from afar, and fear and hatred were rampant. Passions ran high. The Arab was the enemy...Meir Kahane, the racist who had come to Israel from the United States, had lit a fire. Kahane is dead, but the flames of bigotry and fanaticism he worked so hard to fan still burn. Indeed, recent surveys show that ever more Israeli Jews support, or are at least willing to seriously consider, the most brutal measures against the Arabs living under their control, including genocidal forced mass expulsion from the land of "greater Israel." Zionist Criminal Activities: A General Overview Over the years, Zionist militants have carried out hundreds of illegal actions against real or imagined "enemies," including many acts of vandalism and harassment, and countless threatening phone calls. What follows here, though, are details about some particularly spectacular criminal operations. While JDL responsibility for many of them has been conclusively established, in some cases precise responsibility could not be established. On January 26, 1972, a JDL team firebombed the New York City offices of a US-Soviet cultural exchange agency. Killed in the fire was a 27-year-old secretary (who happened to be Jewish). Thirteen others were injured. One participant, Sheldon Siegel, confessed to police that he had made the bomb, and provided the names of the others involved in the crime. Several years later Kahane acknowledged JDL responsibility for the crime. However, the case against the JDL members who were charged in the incident was eventually dismissed on a technicality. (36) In May 1972, ten JDL thugs broke into the Austrian consulate in Washington, DC, and beat Austria's ambassador to the US, Karl Gruber, as well as the building's janitor. (37) In May 1974, JDL members attacked Arab-American community activist Dr. Mohammed Mehdi with a lead pipe, sending him to the hospital with a broken back. It took nearly a year for the police to make an arrest, even though a perpetrator had appeared on television to boast of the deed. A short time later, Mehdi's offices in Manhattan were almost totally destroyed in an apparent arson attack. (38) On February 21, 1975, a US federal court found Kahane guilty of violating terms of a probation stemming from his 1971 felony conviction for manufacturing firebombs. He had been forbidden from having anything to do with bombs, dynamite or other weapons, or encouraging violence. Citing incriminating letters written by Kahane in which he had urged followers to assassinate Russian and Arab diplomats, the judge sentenced the rabbi to one year imprisonment. Kahane served eight months of this term in a Manhattan halfway house, which he was allowed to leave every day to eat in kosher restaurants. Kahane used this period of "imprisonment" to conduct JDL business. (39) Jewish Defense League responsibility for a terrorist firebombing attack against an alleged "Nazi war criminal" is reported here in the New York Post, September 7, 1985. In 1975, 21-year-old JDL member David Kamaiko hijacked an executive helicopter in New York City, demanding $2 million ransom to buy guns for the JDL. Kamaiko shot the pilot before he was himself subdued. (40) In 1978, Canadian JDL leader Joseph Schachter bombed the home of right-wing activist Donald Andrews. (41) On April 11, 1982, JDL member Allan Goodman opened fire with a machine gun at a Muslim house of wo… truncated (56,633 more characters in archive)