The Supreme Court has rejected appeals by Rabbi Meir Kahane, leader of the ultra-nationalist “Kach” movement and his associate, Baruch Green, to rescind the administrative detention orders under which they were imprisoned last month. The court also refused to reduce the orders to house arrest.
Justice Yitzhak Kahan, who rendered the court’s decision Friday, explained that the evidence presented against both detainees pointed to a plot so serious as to place their appeal beyond consideration. He rejected defense claims that administrative detention, a hold-over from the British Mandate regime in Palestine, could be applied only to parties seeking to destroy the State.
No official disclosure has been made as to the nature of the alleged plot which prompted the Defense Ministry to call for Kahane’s detention According to media reports, the Kach leader and his associates were planning to blow up the Al Aksa Mosque, one of the holiest shrines of Islam, on a Friday when it would be packed with worshippers.
As Kahane was led from the court Friday, reporters asked him for his reactions to the June 2 bomb attacks on the West Bank which severely maimed two Arab mayors and blinded a Druze police sapper. Kahane replied. “This week has been a holiday for me and all of Israel. It seems that good Jews took revenge for the blood of Jews spilled in Hebron.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
