A magistrates court ruled today that the management of Binyanei Haooma, the Jerusalem convention center, must rent the premises to Rabbi Meir Kahane’s extremist Kach Party for its convention next week, despite vigorous protests from Zionist leaders.
Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, was outraged when he learned, several weeks ago, that Kach had rented the convention hall. He ordered the Binyanei Haooma to cancel the agreement on grounds that the Zionist movement, which owns the building, cannot serve as a platform for an “anti-Zionist, anti-democratic body” such as Kach. The WZO Executive adopted a resolution banning rental to Kach.
But Judge Aharon Simha upset that decision on grounds that the political views espoused by Kach were not sufficient reason to deny it privileges that were not in violation of the law. Last month, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Kahane to introduce two racist bills in the Knesset after the Knesset Speaker had struck them from the agenda.
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