Israel's Attorney General urged to rescind ban on outlawed Kach party

Israel’s Attorney General has been asked to legalised the proscribed Kach party, which was founded by ultra-nationalist politician and rabbi Meir Kahane, reported the Jerusalem Post.

“Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote a letter to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit this week,” the paper reported, “asking for him to legalise the party”.

“In the letter, Ben-Gvir wrote that if Mandelblit did not legalise the party, he would petition the Supreme Court and begin a public campaign,” the article added.

Kahane served in the Knesset from 1984 to 1988 as the head of the Kach Party, which won one seat in the 1984 election. It was then barred from running in the 1988 election because it backed the expulsion of Palestinian citizens. Kahane himself was killed in New York in 1990.

In 1994, Israeli authorities outlawed Kach as a terrorist organisation, following Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron.

Read: Likud, Jewish Home rejects modifying Nation State bill

According to the Jerusalem Post, “Ben-Gvir said it was absurd that while Kach is banned, the Joint List is permitted, even though its MKs incite against Israel and support terrorists. He said that if Kach is legalised, the party will consider running candidates in the 2019 elections for the Knesset.”

The paper added that “Kach’s platform called for annexing all of Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], and forcibly expelling all Arabs living there.”