Washington, DC - Appeals Court Upholds Terrorist Label for a Jewish Group

Washington, DC - A militant Jewish group and two of its affiliates were designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, a federal appeals court ruled.

The group, Kahane Chai, is a spinoff of the radical Kach movement of Rabbi Meir Kahane, an Israeli politician who was assassinated in New York in 1990. Kahane Chai, advocates the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. The United States State Department declared Kahane Chai a terrorist organization in 1997.
In a 2003 letter to the State Department, a lawyer for Kahane Chai, Samuel Abady, said it and its affiliates were “legitimate Jewish activist organizations,” none of which “practices, supports or advocates terrorism.” The group’s current lawyer, Kenneth Klein, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The unanimous decision upholding the terrorist designation, from a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ruled that the State Department's decision had “substantial support in the administrative record.” That standard, from a 1996 antiterrorism law, is a relaxed one, said Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, who wrote the opinion.

A 1996 law authorizes the secretary of state to designate groups as foreign terrorist organizations if they, among other things, use conventional or unconventional weapons with the intent to endanger people or harm property or to engage in, among other activities, assassinations.
The law provides that the assets of groups designated as terrorist organizations can be frozen or seized; the groups’ representatives may be barred from the United States; and providing money or other support to the groups can be a crime.