Kach Party leader Meir Kahane obediently took the required oath of allegiance to the State of Israel Wednesday and regained the full rights and privileges of a Knesset member.
He had been stripped of most of those rights by Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel last month. Kahane had departed from the standard text and recited a psalm instead. An appeal by Kahane to reverse Hillel’s action was rejected by the Supreme Court Sunday.
Immediately after the oath was administered by the Knesset Clerk, Mapam MK Elazar Granot said he would notify the American judicial authorities of Kahane’s pledge of allegiance, which could lead to forfeiture of his U.S. citizenship.
Kahane, fighting efforts by the State Department to strip him of his citizenship, testified at a U.S. court hearing that he never swore allegiance to a foreign country. His subsequent substitution of a psalm for the oath signified his primary allegiance to God, he told the American authorities.
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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.
