Cadres Determine Everything

Selection, recruitment and training in the Kahanist movement

Introduction

The quote about cadres belongs to Stalin, who knew quite a bit about running organizations, subversive and otherwise. What he meant by it was that the quality of your personnel determines the trajectory of your organization - whether it succeeds or fails, and how.

In this world, efficiency, competence, knowledge and motivation are rare. Organizations tend to work to the lowest common denominator, as anyone who’s had to deal with a bureaucracy can attest. While a bureaucracy can try to compensate for mediocrity, incompetence and lack of motivation by putting standards and processes in place, a revolutionary organization can not; most of its work is not subject to standardization. While an entrenched corporation can make up for inefficiency through outsourcing, a revolutionary organization can not: inefficiency will limit its funds. Most importantly, the quality of cadres is self-perpetuating: “A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s.” High quality personnel will put up with much, including privation, sacrifice and danger, but they will not put up with incompetence, stupidity and inefficiency; therefore, if you do not weed out incompetent, stupid and inefficient personnel, they will weed out the rest.

Lehi's Personnel Policy

Personnel quality is even more important than ideology. For example, Lehi, for most of its existence, was run by a triumvirate of men with very diverse viewpoints: Yitzhak Shamir, a secular reactionary, Israel Eldad, who held messianic views and desired the rebuilding of the Third Temple, and Nathan Yellin-Mor, a fairly extreme leftist. Despite their ideological differences, the triumvirate had two things in common: a laser focus on a concrete goal (the expulsion of the British occupiers) and extremely high intelligence, competence, dedication and ruthlessness. This filtered down to the rank and file, which included the aggressively secular and the Haredim, and even Circassian Muslims (Eldad’s escape from prison was facilitated by a family of the latter from Abu Ghosh, who started a riot in the hospital where he had been taken for treatment.) All were united by dedication to a clear goal and high ability.

By building their organization along these lines, Lehi was able to overcome extremely serious handicaps (the lack of safe havens, external political allies and money) and pursue an insurgency against the British which saw them first retreat to fortified compounds and then leave the country entirely.

Unlike their Etzel counterparts, Lehi was left alone by the Zionist collaborators of the British; during the 1944 Season, when the Haganah was capturing, torturing and killing Etzel members and handing them over to the British, it left Lehi alone. The Haganah’s calculation, that Lehi would retaliate against their leaders and extract a heavy personal price, was correct. What gave Lehi’s threats to that effect credibility was the justified reputation of their personnel for competence, ruthlessness and dedication.

Lehi would individually recruit its members, often from ideologically adjacent political organizations such as Beitar, or use a form of inbound marketing, where potential recruits would come to those they suspected were members. Recruits were given initial assignments such as pasting up newsletters (Lehi’s primary channel of communication with the public, and highly risky,) and then assessed on their performance for further training and follow on assignments of increasing responsibility.

Parenthetically, Lehi was able to maintain a high standard through discipline. Not only were its staff expected to take high risks and perform well, but also expected to obey the organization’s decisions. Eliyahu Giladi, a senior member, who had proven his dedication, competence and bravery, was executed for refusal to submit to Lehi’s discipline and acting recklessly. A revolutionary organization can not tolerate indiscipline and disobedience.

Al Qaeda’s Personnel Policy

Personnel quality is a double edged sword in the sense that personnel have certain expectations based on the image an organization projects. Failure to live up to those expectation results in an outflow of personnel. An example can be found in the career of Osama Bin Laden. His small organization originally existed to provide funding, supplies and training to mujahideen. After the Battle of Jaji, where Bin Laden’s forces found themselves successfully defending a mountain stronghold against Soviet special forces and airborne troops, his organization pivoted to a combat role, attracting many young Arab volunteers focused on fighting, terrorism and martyrdom. The result was that these volunteers pushed the organization into a large conventional fight in the Battle for Jalalabad, which they lost badly. Bin Laden’s subsequent attempt to pivot further to an aid-focused role in Sudan resulted in all but a few dozen members leaving in disappointment. His former associates have described the 9/11 attacks as driven by an attempt to regain organizational cachet and thus manpower.

Small Victories

Personnel policies must deal honestly with human abilities and limitations. Without victories and achievements, people become discouraged, lose enthusiasm and drift away. These victories can be small, but they must come in a constant stream. For instance, Lehi’s louder actions-bombings and assassinations, prison breakouts and attacks on infrastructure-punctuated a steady stream of less spectacular achievements, right down to flyers and posters put up and training camps run under the noses of the British. In addition to maintaining morale, these small victories allowed constant evaluation of personnel, identification of their abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and subsequent assignments based on this information. They also drew new quality recruits into the organization.

Kahanist Personnel Policy

Having established the central role of personnel quality, let’s examine the Kahanist approach to this problem. Whom did the Kahanists recruit, and how? How were these men selected, motivated and developed?

Even in Israel, Kahanism was primarily an Anglo-American movement. Some of this was driven by Rabbi Kahane’s identity as the product of mid-20th century American Jewry, linguistically and ideologically. Most of it was the result of personnel continuity with the JDL and organizational inertia. Towards the end of the 80s, as Kach gained more national prominence as a political party, this began to change: there were dozens of local branches in Israel’s cities, each staffed by local volunteers. After Kach was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court, most of these volunteers faded away, leaving the older core, paralleling Al Qaeda’s experience after Jalalabad.

The typical recruit would join after having heard one of Rabbi Kahane’s public speeches (largely delivered in English) or reading his books. This would involve coming to Kach’s office in Jerusalem and offering his services. He would be given the opportunity to join one of the routine missions, for instance, going to the Ramle Market and handing out flyers, or to the beach and agitating against mixed Arab-Jewish couples. Similarly to Lehi, gluing up posters was a frequent activity. Based on his performance, he would be invited to further activities.

The core group of full-time or nearly full-time activists numbered about 1-5 at any given time. It was primarily Anglo-American. Frequently, its members were in Israel to learn at a local yeshiva, which left them plenty of free time for political activism. An intermediate circle would occasionally make themselves available. An outer circle of a few thousand could be gathered for rallies such as the one after Kach’s banning.

Goals

As described above, goals play a major role in personnel policy. A shared, achievable goal can motivate people of disparate worldviews and desires to work together in the face of adversity over many years, so long as they are making measurable progress towards it by achieving intermediate goals. What were the goals of the Kahanist movement?

The overarching goal was to put a halt to “chilul Hashem,” roughly, the desecration of God’s Holy Name. This concept usually refers to actions which indicate to the Jews and the world at large that God does not exist and His Torah is not significant or true. “Chilul” more accurately means “nullification”, the making of something into an emptiness. Generally, activities in every sphere of Israeli life could be viewed as chilul Hashem, from public Shabbat violation to the induction of Jewish girls into the IDF to sales of non-kosher food to Jews to sexual immorality. Rabbi Kahane primarily focused on those areas of chilul Hashem where Arabs were involved, that is to say, Arab terrorism and crime, and sexual relationships between Jews and Arabs. This was a conscious choice, for focusing on other areas would have alienated many of his potential secular supporters.

In the pursuit of this goal, the main focus was attracting media attention. This was in some ways a result of Rabbi Kahane’s American background; he had come of age in the era of the Civil Rights struggle. This struggle was primarily driven by sympathetic coverage by large media outlets such as the New York Times, which serve in large part as a communication channel among the various sectors of the American government and elites. Rabbi Kahane’s American activities with the JDL were heavily media-focused, and often successful, leveraging the American media to e.g. damage the USSR’s image in the US. Therefore, he attempted to apply the same focus in Israel.

Unfortunately, the Israeli media is much smaller and less independent than its American counterpart was in the 60s. Activities designed to gain coverage and promote Kahanist ideas generally did not do so; coverage gained was mostly derogatory.

Further, this focus on media attention resulted in a short term focus and attracted many people who were incapable of long term thinking, strategy and planning. They repelled potential recruits who were capable, forming a sort of human plug. The result was an organization where only the leader was able to formulate and implement long or medium term goals.

Training

Aside from ideological pep talks, the movement did not provide much in the way of training to its members. The Or Harayon yeshiva was opened partially as a way to address this deficiency, but did not. In early 1990, the Kahanist movement opened the ‘Institute of the Jewish Idea’ to provide both ideological and practical training to its activists. In parallel, it made some steps to the creation of a shadow government for the nascent State of Judea, which Rabbi Kahane had called to create after the Kach party was banned from office. Unfortunately and perhaps not coincidentally, Rabbi Kahane was assassinated in November of the same year, which more or less ended the movement’s existence as such.

Conclusions And Recommendations

One can not fail to be struck by the lengths to which the Kahanist movement went to make itself conspicuous and threatening. In a movement whose not-so-secret goal was the capture and rebuilding of the Israeli state and society, this seems strange. It is as though a predator, moving through the jungle, displayed bright colored plumage and shrieked loudly about its intent to eat any ungulate in its path. Given the small size of the movement, it was able to make lots of noise and draw much attention.

A movement more focused on concrete results would be well served to formulate a clearer overarching goal and a series of attainable intermediate goals. This would make it easier to attract capable people who could act independently over the span of years and decades. Attracting such people and filtering out others should be a primary goal, at least in the initial stages. Needless to say, once they have been recruited, the focus should be on their training and development, enabling them to increase their abilities to serve the organization. This means entering key institutions such as the intelligence and security community, business and academia, building their personal influence and skillset, identifying others who would be useful, and recruiting and developing them. The traditional method of growing a movement, through one’s own family and community, should also not be neglected, and we will discuss this in detail in later articles.

Recruiting and developing potential members should be done in a two-fold manner. Young people should be recruited based on their potential, measured in terms of intelligence, psychological stability, ability to learn and motivation. Fortunately, both the Haredi and secular world dedicate lots of energy to identifying such people and shunting them to the appropriate channels where their potential can be fully developed and used to the benefit of their society. Elite yeshivot fill this function in the Haredi world. Their secular counterparts are talented youth programs, elite military units and prestigious universities. If the Technion, Mir Yeshiva and Talpiyot Program have done the work of sifting for potential for you, all you need to do is to poach their students. Fetullah Gulen’s movement in Turkey operated extremely effectively in this way for decades; they opened a nationwide chain of test prep centers which would identify gifted students and prepare them for the standardized exams which determine the career paths available to young Turks. Ideologically receptive youths would be identified by the staff, developed, guided into appropriate career fields and helped to advance. The result was an organization with a very small core which was almost able to seize power from Erdogan’s regime.

Adults should be recruited on the same criteria, but with their existing skills and positions factored in. A focus on recruiting members with expertise in medicine, law, psychology, sociology, applied science and technology, finance, academia and governmental bureaucracy should be maintained. They can provide insights, expertise and influence which the movement will require to operate effectively. Depending on their position and age, they may well be better suited to an advisory role and shielded from operations and liability. Recruitment of adult members from the military, law enforcement, security and organized crime communities should be eschewed. If necessary, they can be used as assets for outsourcing.

The network must be used to help its members in career advancement in every way possible. Preferential treatment of members must be a requirement, as it has been in secret societies throughout the centuries. Properly nurtured and developed, today’s graduate student will be tomorrow’s professor writing state policy papers and internationally influential books, attending international conferences and identifying potential future assets, and in short placing all of his resources at the disposal of the organization.

Needless to say, membership should be kept a secret; public rallies, a main office, demonstrations all provide points which are easy to monitor and infiltrate. Even outreach through the internet should be done in a manner which assumes that all traffic is monitored, and creates maximum plausible deniability for the readership, eschewing discussion forums and so forth. Ideally, public entities should exist which do not appear to be dedicated to revolution but rather to some other causes, preferably ones which either benefit the public as a whole (for instance, a medical volunteer group) or their members (a business.) It would be best if most of their members, while sympathetic to the movement’s ideology, would not be aware of the true nature of the entity in which they are involved. These entities should turn a profit, whether in terms of money or influence, and serve as vehicles for the recruitment of new members and agents of influence, as well as their training in key skills.

Given a choice between a shiny public victory or an inconspicuous improvement in their position, the movement must always choose the latter. Those members who can not resist a short term focus must be shunted off into positions appropriate to their tendencies or eliminated from the movement, preferably without realizing that this is what has happened to them; a position with an ideologically adjacent organization focused on short term publicity, such as Ben Gvir’s party, would be ideal.

While some dirty work may be needed even in the early stages, a successful movement must seriously consider the possibility of having it done by cutouts, outsourcing it to other organizations (see above) or manipulating unstable losers into doing it in a plausibly deniable way. Otherwise, it will draw unwanted attention to itself from the security services. Worse yet, it will make itself attractive to the sorts of people who enjoy doing dirty work because of personal psychological deficiencies, and whose lack of stability will compromise the movement. These people should be identified and eliminated as quickly as possible.