The US State Department announced over the weekend that it was removing five extremist groups from its list of foreign terrorist organizations, including Kach, the ultranationalist party founded by Meir Kahane. Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and author of Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist, said that at one time the Kach movement became more violent and anti Arab after Kahane moved to Israel from the United States. He told reporter Arieh O’Sullivan that Kahanism has seen an extraordinary rise in support electorally recently, largely due to a legitimacy given it by right-wing leaders.

(photo: Olivier Fitoussi/flash90)