Yossi Mekelberg
July 02, 2019
Israeli police block the road in front of extreme right-wing activist Baruch Marzel who is leading a controversial demonstration in Nazareth, the largest Arab-Israeli city, on July 15, 2012. (AFP file photo)
There is quite a competition for who can be considered the true heir to Meir Kahane, who by most accounts is responsible for the entry into Israeli politics of the most repellent examples of racist and hate speech.
When Kahane appeared on the political stage, his venomous language against Arabs, peace activists, the media and others was on the very margins of Israeli discourse.
Sadly this is no longer the case, and incitement against those groups has been creeping into mainstream politics, advocated and encouraged by his disciples. No one takes this further than Baruch Marzel.
He was born in the US, although he emigrated to Israel with his family as a baby and grew up in Jerusalem.
From his youth, he was attracted to extreme right-wing movements. He joined Kahane’s Jewish Defense League at the age of 13 and later his party Kach, a bluntly racist organization with strong fascist ideological elements that was barred from running for Israel’s Knesset (Parliament).
At a young age, Marzel was Kahane’s spokesperson and regarded as his right-hand man. His admiration of Kahane and his vile system of beliefs can be witnessed even today. Marzel often quotes him on his Twitter feed to attack, in inciteful language, almost everyone who disagrees with him.
For Marzel, even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman are too soft on the Palestinians, whom he views almost without exception as terrorists or servants of terrorism.
Marzel’s vision of Israel’s future is one of a state run according to Jewish law, the Halacha, which aspires to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount and replace the mosques standing there today, while completely disregarding the insult to the Muslim world and the provocation that even contemplating such an action represents.
Marzel’s injection of extreme nationalism into Israel’s political discourse makes him one of the most severe threats to Israel’s society and democracy
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Israeli police block the road in front of extreme right-wing activist Baruch Marzel who is leading a controversial demonstration in Nazareth, the largest Arab-Israeli city, on July 15, 2012. A group of far-right Israeli activists held a controversial demonstrations in Nazareth to denounce the fact Arab Israelis were exempt from military service. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)