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Baruch Marzel
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Baruch Marzel is an American-born Israeli, Orthodox Jew and leading right-wing politician. He lives in the Jewish community of Hebron in Tel Rumeida with his wife and nine children. He is the leader of the Religious Zionism-orientated Jewish National Front party. He claims he was the "right hand man" of assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, acting as spokesman for the American Rabbi's Kach organization for ten years until it was outlawed in Israel and the US as a terrorist organization.
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Encyclopedia
Baruch Marzel is an American-born Israeli, Orthodox Jew and leading right-wing politician. He lives in the Jewish community of Hebron in Tel Rumeida with his wife and nine children. He is the leader of the Religious Zionism-orientated Jewish National Front party. He claims he was the "right hand man" of assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane, acting as spokesman for the American Rabbi's Kach organization for ten years until it was outlawed in Israel and the US as a terrorist organization. The mainstream Israeli press regularly describes him as an "extreme right-wing activist".
The Supreme Court of Israel deemed Kach "racist" and disqualified it from the 1988 elections because it advocated the forced expulsion of the Arab Palestinians from Israel.
Marzel was elected head of the Kach movement's secretariat after Kahane was assassinated in New York. A splinter group from Kach, Kahane Chai, was led by Kahane's son Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane. In 1994 both groups were designated terrorist organisations in Israel and the US following the groups’ statements in support of Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 Palestinians in Hebron.
According to a 2003 report in the most popular Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, "Marzel had acquired a police record of some 40 files before he was 30". The report goes on to detail his criminal record, including assaults on Palestinians (one earning him a 12-month suspended prison sentence), an Israeli police officer and Israeli left-wing activist and journalist Uri Avnery.
In 2003, Marzel joined Herut and Paul Eidelberg's Yamin Israel party to become the number two candidate on the party list, after Michael Kleiner, in the bid to enter the 16th Knesset session. The election advertisements featured him prominently with the traditional Hebrew saying "Hazak U'Baruch" (literally strong and blessed, ), a pun on Marzel's first name. Herut narrowly missed the minimum number of votes needed to enter the Knesset.
In 2004, he founded the Jewish National Front and headed its Knesset list in the 2006 elections. During the election campaign, Marzel called on the Israeli military to "carry out a targeted killing against (left-wing figure) Uri Avneri and his leftist collaborators" whilst being interviewed on Channel 10. This came in reaction to Avneri earlier saying on Israeli radio station Kol Israel that the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi was a Palestinian "targeted killing", much like the killing of Palestinian political leaders by the Israeli military. The radio did not quote Avneri's next words: "I am against all assassinations, both by Israelis and Palestinians".
Ultimately the Jewish National Front received 24,824 votes (0.79%), less than half the minimum 2% required to enter the Knesset.
Marzel has also advocated violence towards homosexuals in Israel, calling for a religious war against them during a radio interview. He is quoted as saying that the stabbing which occurred at the previous year's gay pride parade in Jerusalem would "seem minor" compared to what was coming.
In 2009, after fellow party member Michael Ben-Ari won a seat in Knesset on the National Union (Israel) list, Marzel agreed to serve as Ben-Ari's parlimentary aid, along with Itamar Ben Gvir.
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