Nov. 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The United States has condemned this Thursday the visit of the Israeli far-right Ben Gvir to a memorial event for the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, assassinated in 1990.
The State Department has spoken out in this case in the Biden Administration’s first criticism of Zionist party leader Otzma Yehudit, who aspires to become Israel’s next security minister.
“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent, there’s no other word for it. It’s abhorrent,” Department spokesman Ned Price said.
In addition, Price has assured that the US authorities are concerned about the legacy of Kahane Chai, an anti-Arab group founded by Meir Kahane’s son, Binyamin Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. .
“We have condemned incitement, we have condemned violence and racism in all its forms,” said the Department’s spokesman, after expressing concern about the “continued use of rhetoric by violent right-wing extremists.”
In this sense, he has considered that “there is a good reason” to continue designating Kahane Chai as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ (SDGT, for its acronym in English), despite the fact that he has clarified that he is not included in the list of foreign terrorist organizations, for the group’s inactivity.
“We urge all parties to remain calm, to exercise restraint and to refrain from actions that only serve to exacerbate tensions, and that includes Jerusalem,” Price added.
Gvir has been booed at the rabbi’s 32nd anniversary ceremony, saying he doesn’t “agree with all his views.” However, he has justified his attendance “for the love of Israel” and the “fight of the Soviet Union and against anti-Semitism”, he explained in a message on his Twitter social network profile.
