Meir Kahane Quotes
Never, ever deal with terrorists. Hunt them down and, more important, mercilessly punish those states and groups that fund, arm, support, or simply allow their territories to be used by the terrorists with impunity.
Kahane, Meir. Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews. Lyle Stuart, 1987.
He was Defense Minister at the time. This theme was picked up later by both Israel and the United States and after September 11, President George W. Bush made it official U. S. policy.
He argues that even if the concession to terrorists is seemingly small, there is much greater damage in that the minimal concession will also stimulate more attempts to gain other victories. See {629723} for his complementary statement on dealing with terrorists.
The President and Vice President wanted places to interrogate suspected terrorists where they did not have to obey American law, where the press could be kept away from the prisoners, and there would be no way that a prisoner could get the assistance of attorneys and American Judges could not have any jurisdiction. A number of the prisoners had been picked up by mistake, or were accused by people who had scores to settle, and if the CIA had made a mistake, the public could not find out. Further, they wanted to torture certain prisoners and wanted places where they could use their “enhanced interrogation”—see {637536}--without the public finding out.
Rabbi Meir David HaKohen Kahane was an American-born Israeli ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset. A cofounder of the Jewish Defense League and founder of the Israeli political party Kach, he espoused militant views and actions to combat anti-Semitism that led to a 1971 criminal conviction in the United States for conspiracy to manufacture explosives intended for the Soviet Mission to the United Nations in New York City, and in Israel for plotting to blow up the Libyan embassy in Brussels in revenge for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich; in each case he received a suspended sentence and probation.
