600 Protest Appearance by Kahane at S.F. Benefit

About 600 loudly chanting demonstrators marched outside the St. Francis Hotel on Monday night to protest an appearance by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who they say has created an atmosphere of violence that led to the Santa Ana bombing that killed Arab rights leader Alex M. Odeh.

Chanting “Smash Kahane” and “Fascist Kahane has to go home,” the protesters marched along Powell Street in front of the hotel for about two hours as the Israel Parliament member attended a benefit dinner sponsored by supporters of KACH, his political party.

Kahane, a native of Brooklyn who is waging a court battle to keep his U.S. citizenship, has called for the expulsion of 2 million Arabs from lands under Israeli rule. He was met earlier in the day by a group of Palestinian student protesters at San Francisco State University, where he spoke to two international relations classes.

Protest spokesman Osama Doumani said Kahane has created an “anti-Arab, hysterical” atmosphere that led to a bombing last August in front of a pro-Arab group’s offices in Boston and the Oct. 11 bomb blast that killed Odeh, West Coast regional coordinator for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Odeh, 41, of Orange, died two hours after a bomb exploded as he opened the door to the group’s offices on the second floor of a building at 1905 East 17th St. Santa Ana police and FBI agents say no group has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

“It’s clear to us that Alex was a victim of the anti-Arab hysteria and Kahanism that has become so prevalant recently,” Doumani, a spokesman for ADC’s Northern California chapter, said after the rally. “People think they can get away with it, because of the climate made by Kahane statements, and Arabs pay the price.”

A San Francisco Police Department spokesman said the demonstration was “noisy but orderly” and that there were no arrests or injuries. Police estimated the crowd at about 500, but some reporters said there were about 700 protesters.

In a news conference earlier in the day at San Francisco International Airport, Kahane said Arabs should be given “some form of compensation” to leave Israel, where he said they will soon outnumber Jews.

Kahane said he did not advocate using violence to force Arabs out of Israel “unless necessary,” but he declined to elaborate.

It is up to Jewish leaders to decide whether they want a Jewish Zionist state or a Western democratic state, Kahane said.

“The Arabs of Israel don’t want to be Israelis,” Kahane said. “They want to take everything away from the Jews.”

Denies Racism

Kahane denied charges that he was racist, although he said he has contempt for Arabs who live in a Jewish state.

“I don’t hate Arabs; I love Jews,” he said. “I just have the courage and audacity to say what other Jewish leaders won’t.”

Bay Area Jewish leaders, however, issued a statement through the local Jewish Community Relations Council rejecting Kahane as a political figure or spokesman for the Jewish people “until he renounces his bigoted program.”

The group’s statement went on to say: “Defaming the members of an entire population group or singling them out for discriminatory and harmful action because of their ancestry is the very heart of the most immoral and evil political acts of this century.”

About 75 pro-Palestinian students, some carrying banners and signs comparing Kahane to Adolf Hitler, marched outside the Education Building at San Francisco State University on Monday afternoon while Kahane spoke to 40 international relations students.

Another demonstration sponsored by the Jewish Student Action Committee drew about 200 students under a large sign reading: “In the Mideast and here at State, Jews and Arabs must stop the hate. Negotiate!”

Dwight Simpson, a professor of international relations who invited Kahane to the campus, told reporters he was “very sorry” about the heavy security and police barricades used to keep crowds from the Education Building where Kahane spoke.

“Rabbi Kahane is a crucially important part of Israeli political reality,” Simpson said, adding that it was the university’s function to teach students, “ . . . not what we would like or what we would hope, but what is.”

Julia Fortier reported from San Francisco and Dave Palermo from Orange County.