Yehuda Ha Kohen - Breaking With The Right

Breaking With The Right

HaKohen and ZFA broke away from Magshimey Herut in 2008 after he angered American neo-conservative groups by stating that:

"There is nothing right-wing or conservative about wanting to keep our homeland free from foreign rule. If we are truly the indigenous natives in the conflict, then our cause should really be championed by liberal students everywhere. Especially since the Bush administration that occupies Iraq and imposes a Patriot Act on the American people is the very same administration pushing to ethnically cleanse the Jewish people from portions of our homeland."

HaKohen frequently used his radio program as a platform to challenge the linear political spectrum and to launch attacks on President George W. Bush, Evangelical Christians and America's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan before eventually leaving INR in 2010.

In August 2011, HaKohen publicly opposed a Jerusalem rally organized by conservative American broadcaster Glenn Beck and other rightist figures, accusing the organizers of promoting a Christian agenda disrespectful of Jerusalem's indigenous culture. HaKohen also dismissed Beck's support for Israel as having imperialist motives, saying:

"Rightwing Americans like Glenn Beck may support the State of Israel, but that support is based on a flawed view of Israel as an American client state in the Middle East. Beck wants to see an Israel that serves as a Western satellite in the region and this directly conflicts with the Zionist goal of a politically independent Jewish state that expresses our authentic Hebrew culture and is capable of making peace with the other indigenous peoples of the Middle East... Zionism is about Jewish liberation and not about creating a 'Robin' to America's 'Batman' in the region."