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Newsletter : 1fax0101.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Jan. 1, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 1
Kahane & Wife Assassinated
Reported by the VOA and Arutz-7 News
Mourners chanting "death to Arabs' turned out in Jerusalem Sunday for the funeral of American-born Binyamin Kahane, son of slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane. The younger Kahane was killed along with his wife in an ambush near his home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Five of the Kahane's six children, aged two months to 10 years -- were wounded in the shooting.
Kahane's father, U.S. born Rabbi Meir Kahane, was gunned down 10 years ago by an Arab in New York. The rabbi advocated forcibly evicting Arabs from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Binyamin Kahane ran a religious school that promoted his father's extremist views. The two victims were buried next to the rabbi.
Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane immigrated to Israel with his family at the age of 4, in 1971
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office condemned the attack, and warned that the killers would be punished. A previously unknown group calling itself "The Intifada Martyrs" has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The incident took place one day after the Fatah faction of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat called for an escalation of violence against Israeli soldiers and settlers, saying it was the only way to achieve independence.
One mourner at Binyamin Kahane's funeral, Sheldon Feingold, knew the family for decades and could not hide his anger over the random killing. "No matter what anyone thought of his parents," he said, "here was a law-abiding young man who was gunned down with his wife and two children as they were going about their daily life."
Binyamin and Talia Kahane were murdered early Sunday morning by Palestinian terrorists as they were on their way home from Jerusalem to Tapuach in the Shomron.
After dropping off nine-year-old Meir David at a bus stop from where he went to his Talmud Torah in Beit El, the parents and their five daughters set off northward. Shortly before reaching Ofrah, they were attacked with gunfire by Kalachnikov-armed terrorists who lay in wait near the Arab village of Ein Yabrud. The terrorists fired over 50 bullets at the car; only eight hit their target.
The parents were killed by the bullets, but the children were injured when the car continued wildly on its way and crashed into an embankment. One of the five children is in moderate-to-serious condition.
Speakers at the funeral noted the writings of the Warsaw Ghetto's saintly Rabbi Menachem Zemba, who called upon Jews during the Holocaust to stop sitting passively and to take their fate into their own hands.
At one point, Kabbalist Rabbi David Batzri asked the crowd to sit on the floor and recite the Psalm, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept as we remembered Zion." Thousands of people sat on the floor and wept with him as they recited the verses. The crowd was almost totally quiet during the eulogies, but the procession was then held up for about a half-hour when some participants vented their rage at the media vans nearby, causing significant damage to Army Radio equipment.
It was announced at the funeral that the family will sit shiva - the traditional week-long mourning period - in a tent outside the Prime Minister's home in the Rechavia section of Jerusalem.
Palestinians Blame Israelis for Death of Fatah Leader
By VOA News
The anger was not only on the Israeli side. Palestinians demonstrated in several West Bank towns over the murder earlier Sunday of Palestinian activist Thabet Thabet. The dentist, an official of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement, was shot outside his home in Tulkarem.
The head of Fatah in Jerusalem, Hatem Abd el Kader, told VOA he blames Israeli special forces for the killing. "It is a crime from the Israeli soldiers and it is bad for us and we are very angry for this crime," he said. "It is not really peace and we do not have any Israeli partner for peace."
The Fatah movement calls for the next two weeks to be days of rage. And Israeli security is on alert in anticipation of more terrorist attacks similar to two car bombings last week that killed two Israeli soldiers and injured more than a dozen civilians.
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