From the Associated Press (via Salon’s “From the wires”) comes this story filed out of Tel Aviv by one Celean Jacobson:
For half a century, Yaffa Yarkoni’s songs glorified Israeli soldiers. So when the 76-year-old diva, a national symbol, drew parallels between the treatment of Jews by the Nazis and the army’s handling of Palestinians, she stunned other Israelis.
The article mentions that Yarkoni has received death threats for speaking out. What is not mentioned is that before the recent May 11th peace rally in Rabin Square, a group known as “Gilad-Shalhevet” threatened to assassinate her if she performed at the rally. (Despite this warning, Yarkoni did perform at the rally). This according to a story in Ha’aretz (scroll down the page).
Curious about this “Gilad-Shalhevet” group, I did a Google search and came upon the New Kach Movement, a group dedicated to “reviving the Kahanist dream” (“Kahanist” referring to slain Rabbi Meir Kahane). From their July 11, 2001 newsletter,
[…]The Brigades are reportedly a Jewish underground organization named after 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass, killed by a “palestinian” sniper in Chevron on March 26, and Samaria Regional Council security head Gilad Zar, 40, of the Itamar community in Samaria, killed in a shooting attack on May 30.
[…]Finally some Jews have begun taking the oath of Never Again seriously. Finally Jews have put the nations future ahead of their own future. The only question that must be asked is why there is only a Gilad-Shalhevet Brigade. Where is the Binyamin Kahane Brigade where is the Yehuda Shoham Brigade?
The Arabs have hundreds of brigades each named after their dead, each one of these brigades go out day after day to kill Jews in an attempt to wipe us out. We must do the same, or face the sad facts that our deaths today are worth no more then the unanswered deaths of the 6 million Jews of the Holocaust?