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Kahane: Jdl Will Set Up West Bank, Golan ‘provisional Government’ if Israel Returns the Areas

March 5, 1981
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— Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, said here today that the JDL will set up “a provisional government” for the “Golan Heights, Judaea and Samaria” if “the Israel government gives up those lands.” He said the “provisional government” would establish an “embassy” in Washington for the “state of Judaea” that would issue passports and visas and fly its own flag.

Kahane, who has been in the U.S. for seven weeks since he was released from prison in Israel where he served a sentence for inciting to violence, made his remarks at a sidewalk press conference outside the National Press Building here. He was barred from entering the building by police acting at the request of building officials.

Kahane, accompanied by about a dozen JDLers, said “There will be a second Jewish state but not a Palestinian state” in describing his plans. “Our dream is that Israel is going to annex” the “liberated lands” and “then we (the provisional government) will go out of business. We’re serious about it. If Israel gives up the land, we’ll fill the vacuum.”

The JDL had planned to hold its press conference in a 10th floor corridor of the National Press Building, outside the offices of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Kahane claimed that the committee is a “front” for the Palestine Liberation Organization. James Zogby, former head of the Palestine Human Rights Committee, said he and former Democratic Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota were “co-organizers” of the anti-discrimination group. The Human Rights Committee is presently headquartered in Chicago.

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