Meir Kahane

Martin David Kahane (/kəˈhɑːnə/; 1 August 1932 – 5 November 1990), also known as Meir Kahane (Hebrew: הרב מאיר דוד כהנא‎), was an American-Israeli rabbi and ultra-nationalist writer and political figure, whose work became either the direct or indirect foundation of most modern Jewish terrorist and right-wing political groups. He was an ordained Orthodox rabbi and later served as a member of the Israeli Knesset. Kahane also used the pen names Benyac and David Sinai and the pseudonyms Michael King, David Borac and Martin Keene.

Kahane gained recognition as an activist for Jewish causes, such as organizing Jewish self-defense groups in deteriorating neighborhoods and the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate. He later became known in the United States and Israel for political and religious views that included proposing emergency Jewish mass-immigration to Israel due to the imminent threat of a "second Holocaust" in the United States, advocating that Israel's democracy be replaced by a state modeled on Jewish law, and promoting the idea of a Greater Israel in which Israel would annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In order to keep Arabs, whom he stated would never accept Israel as a Jewish state, from becoming a numerical majority in Israel, he proposed a plan allowing Arabs to voluntarily leave Israel and receive compensation for their property, and forcibly removing Arabs who refused.

Kahane founded both the militant group Jewish Defense League (JDL) in the USA and an Israeli political party Kach ("This is the Way"). In 1984 he became a member of the Knesset when Kach gained one seat in parliamentary elections. In 1988, the Israeli government banned Kach as "racist" and "undemocratic" under the terms of an ad hoc law. Kahane was killed in a Manhattan hotel by an Arab gunman in November 1990 after Kahane concluded a speech warning American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was "too late."