The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71709 Message #1229965
Posted By: GUEST
20-Jul-04 - 01:17 PM
Thread Name: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
Subject: RE: BS: Mideast: View From the Eye of the Storm
The Kach movement, with Rabbi Meir Kahane as its candidate, won 26,000 votes in the 1984 election, and Rabbi Kahane became a member of the Knesset. His position was that the Kach movement would not support any government that did not advocate the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel. Fortunately, in 1985, the Knesset passed an amendment to the Basic Law stating that incitement to racism would be grounds for barring a party to participate in elections. Still, in a country the size of Israel, 26,000 votes is not a totally insignificant number.
Not only did the Knesset bar racist parties from participating in elections, they made Kach illegal. Period.
26,000 votes, BTW, represents about 1/2 of 1%. 1/2 of 1% in a democracy IS a totally insignificant number.
The BBC reported polling data that, in December 2001, 74% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza supported sending terrorist suicide bombers to randomly murder civilian men, women and children in Israel.