The Zionist racism against Palestinians... "Lahava" as a model.

Despite its recent emergence and the lack of awareness among many about its explicit and declared Zionist goals, as well as the adoption of its extremist ideas by many current "Israeli" officials, the "Lehava" movement is considered one of the most dangerous Zionist movements to have appeared in recent decades.

When searching for the word "Lahava" in Hebrew, we will find, directly, a connection between the name of the movement and a certain person, its leader Ben Tzion Gubshtein, who is one of the advisors to the Zionist Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir and his close friend. The Hebrew newspaper "Haaretz" clarified on November 8, 2024, that the minister adopts the advice of the leader of the extremist "Lahava" movement and relies on it in many of his decisions.

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WhatsApp correspondence between Gobstein and Ben Gvir

The newspaper showed that there are ongoing correspondences between the two sides, the most recent of which revealed a recent communication between them via the "WhatsApp" platform, which involved considering Ben Tzion as an important advisor to Ben Gvir. Some ideas from the head of the Zionist movement have actually been adopted by the Minister of National Security, primarily the necessity of carrying out targeted assassinations of Palestinians and closing entire neighborhoods in occupied Jerusalem, in addition to the idea of continuing extensive arrest campaigns to gather weapons from Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Interestingly, the newspaper itself pointed out that the small "cabinet" had approved a proposal from Ben Gvir presented to him by Ben Tzion, the head of the "Lehava" movement, highlighting the dangerous nature of the extremist ideas held by the Zionist movement.

The idea of launching the movement.

The idea of forming Ben Tzion's movement "Lehava" dates back to the year 1999, and its goal at that time was to prevent the phenomenon of "mixed marriages" between Jews and Arabs and to fight it by all possible means. The name is an abbreviation in Hebrew that conveys the idea of "preventing assimilation in the holy land," and the word means "flame" or "torch" in Arabic.

On October 6, 2024, Gubstein published an article in the Hebrew “Channel 7,” revealing his success in celebrating the weddings of 30 Jewish girls in one year - the year of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation - who previously had relationships with Palestinians. This was presented as the goal of establishing the extremist movement “Lahava,” or in other words, rescuing Jewish girls from integrating into Arab life, whether through mixed marriages, which is completely rejected, or through having romantic relationships with them. The official account of the movement on its website notes that the aim of forming the movement is to work diligently on addressing the problems of Jewish girls from their roots, avoiding mixing with “the others” (non-Jews, whether Christians or Muslims), as well as educating children and raising them on extremist religious foundations and strengthening what the movement calls allegiance to the Jewish homeland.

Among the slogans adopted by the movement is "Love for Israel," a concept upon which the Zionist movement was established and for which it works 24 hours a day, under the pretext of saving the lives of Jews from non-Jews. These slogans prompted Britain and the United States to impose sanctions on the movement and its leader, Gubstein, on July 12, 2024. The latter pointed out several times that former U.S. President Joe Biden had imposed sanctions on the movement and on himself and had put a stick in the wheels of its activities, as he described it.

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«Lahava» and Trump

However, American President Donald Trump signed the lifting of the sanctions imposed by his predecessor Biden in the early hours of his arrival at the White House, as reported by the Hebrew newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" on January 21, 2025. The report confirmed that Trump lifted the sanctions on the "Lahava" movement and its leader, Gubshtein, in the context of discussing the new American president's cancellation of Biden's sanctions that had previously been imposed on settlers who committed acts of violence against Palestinian citizens in the West Bank, sanctions that had been signed by the previous president in February 2024.

Immediately, Gobstein's personal friend, Ben Gvir, along with their fellow Zionist thinker Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance, welcomed Trump's decision, which was described as just, claiming that the imposed sanctions were a serious act amounting to blatant foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the occupying state, which harmed democracy and bilateral relations between the two friendly countries, while Smotrich referred to this decision as historic.

Coordination between Netanyahu and Gubshtein

It is clear that there is a state of agreement and coordination in the visions and beliefs of hardline Zionism between Gubstein and Netanyahu. The Hebrew economic newspaper "Calcalist" confirmed on November 29, 2023, that the primary and main sponsor of Gubstein's movement is the well-known billionaire Simon Falik, who is closely associated with the Zionist Prime Minister and with Gubstein himself. To further illustrate this, there is the attempt by Ben Gvir to circumvent the sanctions that are always imposed on Gubstein. The Hebrew website “Serogim” reported on November 17, 2024, about the postponement of a bill in the Knesset that the “Otzma Yehudit/Jewish Power” party attempted to impose last year, which has now been postponed until further notice. This is the law referred to as the "Gubstein Law.

Gubstein and the idea of 'Greater Israel

The movement is based on a set of extremist ideas and radical religious beliefs, such as the belief in the concept of a "Greater Israel." "Lahava" adopts the visions and ideas of the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, who was killed in 1990. He believed in a homogeneous Jewish state with no Arabs, governed according to the laws of the Torah. Kahane and his followers, including Gopstein and other current "Israeli" officials like Smotrich and Ben Gvir, claimed that Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the countries of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria up to the Euphrates River, as well as the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula up to the Nile River, are part of the kingdoms of "Judea and Samaria" (the Zionist term for the West Bank), or the land of "Greater Israel.

The members of the movement—whose actual number is not known—adopt extremist fatwas and believe in the Zionist ideas of well-known Zionist leaders and extremists. They believe in the necessity of annexing the West Bank to "Israel," adopting the slogan "death to Arabs." Even Gopstein and some members of the movement have been interrogated by the "Israeli" police several times, the first of which was in 2014 after the followers of the movement burned a Jewish-Arab school in occupied Jerusalem.

Burning churches and building the alleged 'Temple

The head of the "Lehava" movement did not stop there but was summoned by the police in 2015 due to his statements calling for the burning of churches, claiming that Jewish law recommends the destruction of idols in the land of "Israel." Furthermore, the movement has called for the dismantling of the Dome of the Rock in order to make way for the construction of the alleged "Temple" in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Gobstein believes that Al-Aqsa Mosque is the peak of cancer that we have, and that the "Israeli" government must remove this cancerous tumor. This call is one that he constantly repeats, as reported by the newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" on November 26, 2019.

The extremist movement "Lahava" calls for the use of violence and force against Palestinians, constantly raising the slogan "Death to Arabs." It also advocates for holding Talmudic prayers in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and intensifying the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

From here, the "Lahava" movement is considered one of the Zionist movements that emerged in the past few decades. It is among the most extremist and radical, and it receives material and moral support from Netanyahu's government.

Read the article in Arabic