(IsraelNN.com) The Knesset House Committee resolved that the dispute between Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin and MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) regarding the latter's banned speech on Rabbi Meir Kahane will go to arbitration. The arbitrator will be Likud MK Yariv Levine.
The dispute broke out when Ben-Ari announced his plans to deliver a Knesset speech in memory of the late Rabbi Kahane, on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of Kahane's assassination by a Muslim Arab in New York City.
Speaker Rivlin announced that he would not allow Ben-Ari to give the speech. Ben-Ari claimed that this was an undemocratic attempt to violate his freedom of speech - "a right utilized by Arab MKs every day to attack the IDF and the State of Israel."
Kahane's Kach [This Way!] organization was outlawed four years after his death (as was the spin-off "Kahane Chai" organization). Earlier, the party had been prevented from running for election to the Knesset, precisely as polls predicted that it would win at least five seats in the next elections. Kahane had won only one seat in the previous election.
MK Shlomo Mola (Kadima) expressed approval for Rivlin's decision, stating that Kahane had been outlawed by the Knesset - a mistake that Ben-Ari attempted to correct, saying it was merely his party that had been outlawed, four years after his death. Other MKs, however, were opposed to the blanket ban on Ben-Ari's speech. MK Nissim Ze'ev (Shas) said, "I knew Rabbi Kahane before Ben-Ari began to be his student, and I know that he was murdered by Al-Qaeda! So when someone wants to speak in his memory - not about his political ideology - but about his good deeds, etc., all of a sudden we have to be so sensitive?! Why do we allow ourselves to be attacked day in and day out haters of Israel without this same 'sensitivity'?! Whenever there is incitement and hatred of Israel, there are Arab MKs who are regulars in joining in."
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