ABSTRACT
An examination of the style of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s writings and public speeches reveals that his revenge theory and legitimation of Jewish violence are consistently intermingled with a sense of disaster and tragedy. In 1909 Bar Giora expanded itself into ‘Hashomer’ which assumed the task of countering Arab violence in Palestine and securing Jewish farms and communes. Rene Girard’s analysis of human violence, which seems particularly applicable to the Kahane case, is the theory of the mimetic desire. One of the most characteristic elements of Kahane’s career was that unlike many high priests of violence and catastrophe, his teachings never remained in the books. Kahane’s short essay was a major attack on the prevailing Zionist ideo-theology of the time, the Kookist philosophy of Gush Emunim. Mimetic desire is simply a term more comprehensive than violence for religious pollution. Only religion can control the potency of the mimetic desire, and prevent the self-destruction of the community.
