| Cave of the Patriarchs massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part ofIsraeli settler violence | |
 The compound in 2009 | |
| Location | Hebron,West Bank |
| Date | February 25, 1994; 31 years ago (1994-02-25) |
| Target | Muslim worshippers |
Attack type | Zionist terrorism,mass murder,mass shooting |
| Weapons | IMI Galil |
| Deaths | 30 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 125 |
| Perpetrator | Baruch Goldstein |
| Motive | Anti-Palestinian racism,Jewish extremism |
On 25 February 1994,Baruch Goldstein, anAmerican-Israeli physician and extremist of thefar-right ultra-ZionistKach movement, carried out amass shooting ofPalestinians who were praying in theIbrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) inHebron.[1] Goldstein, dressed in Israeli army uniform,[2] opened fire with an assault rifle and killed 29 people, including children as young as 12, and wounded 125 others.[3] Goldstein was overpowered and beaten to death by survivors.
Theatrocity, which occurred during theJewish holiday ofPurim and theIslamic holy month ofRamadan, strained the Israeli-PalestinianOslo Accords peace process, immediately setting off mass protests by Palestinians throughout theWest Bank. During the ensuing clashes, 20 to 26 Palestinians were killed while 120 were injured in confrontations with theIsraeli military,[4] and 9Israeli Jews were also killed.[5]
Goldstein was widely denounced inIsrael and by communities in theJewish diaspora,[6] with many attributing his act to insanity.[7] Israeli prime ministerYitzhak Rabin condemned the attack, describing Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer" and "a shame onZionism and an embarrassment to Judaism".[8][9][10] SomeJewish settlers in Hebron lauded him as a hero, viewing his attack as a pre-emptive strike and his subsequent death as an act ofmartyrdom.[11] Following statements in support of Goldstein's actions, the Jewishultranationalist Kach party was banned and designated a terrorist organization by theIsraeli government.[12]
In the 1970s, Baruch Goldstein, who was born and lived inBrooklyn,New York, was a charter member of theJewish Defense League.[13] After emigrating toIsrael in 1983,[14] he served as a physician in theIsrael Defense Forces, first as a conscript, then in the reserve forces. Following the end of his active duty, Goldstein worked as a physician and lived in theKiryat Arba settlement nearHebron, where he served as an emergency doctor.[15] Goldstein became involved withKach, and maintained a strong personal relationship withKahane, whose views, regarded by the Israeli government as racist, had caused his party to be banned from theKnesset in 1988.[16] Kahane was assassinated in 1990 by Arab terroristEl Sayyid Nosair in New York City, and Goldstein reportedly swore to take revenge for the killing.[17] Goldstein was elected to Kiryat Arba city council and in this capacity assisted in establishing a memorial park dedicated to Kahane.
In 1981, Goldstein wrote a letter, published inThe New York Times, which said that Israel "must act decisively to remove the Arab minority from within its borders", which "could be accomplished by initially offering encouragement and incentives to Arabs to leave of their own accord".[18] In October 1993, inside the Ibrahimi mosque, acid was poured over the floor, leaving giant holes in the carpets, and six worshippers were assaulted. From the evidence of the sanctuary guards, Goldstein was identified as the culprit. A letter was written toYitzhak Rabin, the then Israeli Prime Minister, by the Muslim authorities "regarding the dangers" of Goldstein and asking for action to be taken to prevent daily violations of the mosque.[19] Four years before the massacre, an agent ofShin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, who had infiltratedKach, passed a warning to his superiors about the danger posed by Goldstein. The agent ascribed to Goldstein the statement, "There will be a day when one Jew will take revenge on the Arabs."[19]
In Hebron, as elsewhere in the West Bank, tensions ran high after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993.[20] Israeli sociologistBaruch Kimmerling however noted that before the massacre, "expressions of Palestinian armed resistance were rare and lacked broad popular support, despite the growing colonization of the West Bank and obstacles to Palestinian economic growth."[21] On 6 December 1993, Goldstein's close friend Mordechai Lapid and his son Shalom Lapid were killed in Hebron.[22][23] As the settlement's emergency responder, Goldstein was present at the murder scene, and he referred to the killers as "nazis".[14]
As the settlement's main emergency doctor, Goldstein was involved in treating victims of Arab-Israeli violence prior to that incident as well. He expressed anti-Arab feelings far before the massacre. Israeli press reports stated that Goldstein refused to treat Arabs, even those serving in theIDF; this was also reflected in comments by his acquaintances. He was known to refuse to treatDruze soldiers who served in the West Bank, claiming that it was against Jewish laws to treat non-Jews.[24][25] However, these anonymous claims were repudiated by a number of sources, including Dr. Manfred Lehman and Dr. Chaim Simons, quoting the Shamgar Commission report.[26][better source needed]
The date 25 February 1994 coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim and fell during the Muslim Ramadan. On the eve of the massacre, Goldstein listened to a reading in the Hall of Abraham of theScroll of Esther, and spoke to others of the need to behave likeEsther. Some[who?] consider it not coincidental that he then carried out the murders as Purim was celebrated. In this context, the festival of Purim was associated with a reading that concernsAmalek, with whom, in Israeli extremist rhetoric, Palestinians are often identified.[6] Joseph Tuman has conjectured he saw himself asMordecai.[27]Ian Lustick thinks it likely Goldstein thought ofYasser Arafat as a modern-dayHaman.[28][29] Both Jews and Muslims were permitted to access their respective parts of the compound. At 5:00 a.m. on February 25, around 800 Palestinian Muslims passed through the east gate of the cave to participate inFajr, the first of thefive daily Islamic prayers.[30] The cave was underIsraeli Army guard, but of the nine soldiers supposed to have been on duty, four were late turning up, and only one officer was there.
Shortly afterwards, passing through the Hall of Abraham, Goldstein entered the Hall of Isaac, where some 800 Muslims were at prayer.[31] He was dressed in his army uniform and carried anIMI Galil assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition, which held a total of 140 rounds in 35 rounds per magazine. He was not stopped by the guards, who assumed that he was an officer entering the tomb to pray in an adjacent chamber reserved for Jews. Standing in front of the only exit from the hall and positioned to the rear of the Muslim worshippers, he is reported as having thrown a grenade into the middle of the hall before opening fire,[31][32] eventually killing 29 people and wounding another 125, among them children. Several people were left with paralyzing wounds.[33] According to survivors, Goldstein bided his time untilsujūd, the part of the prayer where worshippers prostrate themselves with their heads on the floor.[34] He was overcome when someone in the crowd hurled a fire extinguisher which struck him on the head, allowing the crowd to disarm and then beat him to death.[1]
Reports after the massacre were often contradictory. There was initial uncertainty about whether Goldstein had acted alone; it was reported that eyewitnesses had seen "another man, also dressed as a soldier, handing him ammunition".[35] There were many testimonies that made mention of Israeli guards outside the cave having opened fire. Israeli military officials claim that no Israeli troops fired on the Palestinian worshippers. However,The New York Times interviewed over 40 Palestinian eyewitnesses, many of whom were confined to hospital beds with gunshot wounds, and thus "unable to compare notes".[36] All witnesses corroborated that three Israeli guards opened fire, likely in panic amid the confusion, as the Muslims fled the shrine, with at least one soldier firing into the crowd.[32] During the inquiry, an Israeli Army official said three worshippers died in the stampede following the attack and five Palestinians were killed in street riots within Hebron later that day.[36]
The testimony of various Israeli military officials was often contradictory. For instance,Danny Yatom asserted that two of the guards had fired six or seven shots in the confusion "but only in the air", while the two guards themselves, sergeants Kobi Yosef and Niv Drori, later testified to firing four shots "chest high".[37] The guards' testimony was also at odds with the testimony of their ranking officer in claiming they had seen another Jewish settler enter the cave bearing arms.[37]Tikva Honig-Parnass wrote that 10 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 injured by Israeli soldiers who continued to shoot at those who were trying to flee the mosque, at those who were evacuating the wounded, and at people who were rioting at the Ahli hospital. Arafat Baya’at, for one, is reported as having been shot dead by Israeli troops outside the hospital when he picked up a stone to throw at soldiers after seeing a friend of his being carried out of an ambulance.[38] Several Palestinian survivors have told that they believe Israeli soldiers collaborated with Goldstein, stating there were fewer soldiers than usual at the mosque, and that exclusively on that day the metal detector was turned-off and no-one conducted searches: "they [the soldiers] were relaxed and laughing, they didn't think anybody was going to get out alive", said one man who was left paralyzed as a result of being shot by Goldstein.[33]
As word of the incident spread throughout the occupied territories, confrontations broke out in which a further 20 Palestinians were killed and 120 injured.[31]
Two separatesuicide bombings took place in April 1994, carried out byPalestinian militants inside Israel and launched byHamas'Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades in retaliation for the massacre carried out by Goldstein.[39] A total of 8 Israeli civilians were killed and 55 wounded inthe first attack, which took place inAfula on 6 April,[40] at the end of the forty-day mourning period for Goldstein's victims.[41] Six more were killed and 30 injured inHadera bus station suicide bombing a week later. Those were the first suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian militants inside Israel. According to Matti Steinberg, then Shin Bet head's advisor on Palestinian affairs, Hamas had until then refrained from attacking civilian targets inside Israel, and the change in this policy was a result of Goldstein's massacre.[42]
Four days after the massacre, on 1 March 1994, on theBrooklyn Bridge inNew York City, Lebanese-born immigrant Rashid Baz shot at a van of 15Chabad-LubavitchOrthodox Jewish students,killing one and injuring three others.[43] During the shooting spree, the gunman reportedly shouted in Arabic "Kill the Jews", expressing revenge for the massacre four days prior.
Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians in the attack, including six children fourteen years old or younger.[44] Several people were left with paralyzing wounds. In an article commemorating the event's 20th anniversary, Al Jazeera reported that local Palestinians estimated the total number of deaths to be between 50 and 70, with an additional 250 people injured that day.[33]
TheKach movement, with which Goldstein was affiliated, was outlawed as a terrorist organization after issuing statements supporting Goldstein.[12] The cabinet decided to confiscate the weapons of a small number[45] they regarded asright-wing extremists and put them in administrative detention, all the while denying the PLO's request that all settlers be disarmed and that an international force be established to protect Palestinians from Israeli aggression. The Israeli government also took extreme measures against Palestinians following the massacre, banning them from certain streets in Hebron, such asAl-Shuhada Street, where many Palestinians have homes and businesses, and opening them to the exclusive access of Jewish Israelis and foreign tourists.[46]
In an address to theKnesset, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin denounced Goldstein. Rabin, addressing not just Goldstein and his legacy, but also other settlers he regarded as militant, declared,
You are not part of the community of Israel... You are not part of the national democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law... We say to this horrible man and those like him: you are a shame onZionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.[8]
Rabin considered that his failure to close down the Jewish settlements in Hebron after the massacre one of his greatest political mistakes.[47] He was himselfassassinated by another right-wing extremist one and a half years later, after signing theOslo Accords.
Benjamin Netanyahu, then head of the oppositionLikud party, declared, "This was a despicable crime. I express my unequivocal condemnation."[48][disputed –discuss]
The Israeli government appointed a commission of inquiry headed by then president of theSupreme Court,Judge Meir Shamgar. The commission in the epilogue to its report called the massacre "a base and murderous act, in which innocent people bending in prayer to their maker were killed". Among its specific conclusions were:
- 8.2a "... warnings were issued regarding an expected attack by Hamas following the distribution of its leaflets in Hebron."
- 8.7a "Following an incident in Abu-Dis, which ended in the deaths of a number of members of Az-A-Din Al-Qassam [of Hamas], emotions ran high among the Moslem worshipers (about two hundred), who shouted hostile slogans ("Qassam", "kill the Jews"), [at the Jewish worshipers], making it necessary to call in army and Border Police forces. According to one of the Moslem witnesses, the Jews also shouted hostile slogans." (This is in reference to persons present on the previous evening.)
- 8.8a "Those in charge of security at the Tomb were given no intelligence reports that an attack by a Jew against Moslem worshipers could be expected, particularly since intelligence reports warned of the opposite: an attack by Hamas. Therefore, there was concern about an attack by Arabs against Jews."[50]
Critics of the commission have suggested that Shamgar's judicial record has "consistently displayed his leniency toward the settlers, including those convicted of crimes against the Palestinians, but especially toward the soldiers who had fired at the Palestinians" and that his career reflected a history of pro-settler activism by promoting expropriation of Palestinian land to Jewish settlement that is against international law.[51]
There was widespread condemnation of the massacre in Israel.[52] TheJewish Settler Council declared that the act was "not Jewish, not humane".[53] A poll found that 78.8% of Israeli adults condemned the Hebron massacre, while 3.6% praised Goldstein.[54] A 2023 poll indicates 10% of Israeli Jews see Goldstein as a hero, 57% as a terrorist, and the rest are undecided.[55]
Most religious leaders denounced the attack. TheSephardi Chief Rabbi said "I am simply ashamed that a Jew carried out such a villainous and irresponsible act",[56] and suggested that he be buried outside the cemetery.[53] His Ashkenazi counterpart,Yisrael Meir Lau, called it "a desecration of God's name".[56] RabbiYehuda Amital ofGush Etzion said Goldstein had "besmirched the Jewish nation and the Torah".[57] Some rabbis reacted with ambivalence to the massacre,[58] and a few praised Goldstein and called his undertaking "an act of martyrdom".[59] At Goldstein's funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin claimed that even one million Arabs are "not worth a Jewish fingernail".[60][61][62] In eulogizing Goldstein, RabbiIsrael Ariel called him a "holy martyr", and questioned the innocence of the victims by claiming they were responsible for themassacre of Hebron's Jews in 1929.[63] RabbiDov Lior ofKiryat Arba said he was a saint whose "hands are innocent, his heart pure", and compared him to the martyrs of the Holocaust.[64] At the time, settler rabbiYitzhak Ginzburgh was the only prominent Orthodox rabbi who praised the massacre.[65] He has since been detained several times for espousing extremist views.[66]
In the weeks following the massacre, a group of around 10,000 Jews traveled to Hebron to protest the Israeli government's response to the massacre - namely, for considering the removal of the 450 Jews that lived there. Of this group, hundreds came to Goldstein's grave to celebrate Goldstein's actions.[67] TheNew York Times report states that though "Israelis who worship the Brooklyn-born Dr. Goldstein are asmall minority... they may be more than the minuscule fraction the Government claims."[67]
In a pamphlet titledBaruch HaGever[Note 1] published in 1994, and a book of the same name in 1995, various rabbis praised Goldstein's action as a pre-emptive strike in response to Hamas threats of a pogrom and wrote that it is possible to view his act as following fiveHalachic principles.[68][69]
The phenomenon of the adoration of Goldstein's tomb persisted for years, despite Israeli government efforts to crack down on those making pilgrimage to Goldstein's grave site.[70] The grave's epitaph said that Goldstein "gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land".[71] In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli army dismantled the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment.[71] In the years after the dismantling of the shrine, radical Jewish settlers would celebrate Purim by invoking the memory of the massacre, sometimes even dressing up themselves or their children to look like Goldstein.[27][70][72]
In theUnited Kingdom,Chief Rabbi Dr.Jonathan Sacks stated,
Such an act is an obscenity and a travesty ofJewish values. That it should have been perpetrated against worshippers in a house of prayer at a holy time makes it ablasphemy as well... Violence is evil. Violence committed in the name of God is doubly evil. Violence against those engaged in worshipping God is unspeakably evil.[73]
An editorial inThe Jewish Chronicle written byChaim Bermant denounced the Kach organisation to which Goldstein belonged as"Neo-Nazis" and a U.S. creation, funded by American money and a product of American gun culture.[74] The same edition also reported that someLiberalsynagogues in the UK had begun fundraising for Goldstein's victims.[75]
Palestinian protesters took to the streets in the aftermath of the massacre. There were widespread protests and clashes in both the occupied territories and within Israel itself, in Nazareth and Jaffa.[76]
Sociologist Baruch Kimmerling wrote that the massacre "created perceptions of religious warfare." He also argued that the attack formed the roots of theSecond Intifada.[21]
As a reaction to the trauma-induced in children in Hebron, thePalestinian Child Arts Center (PCAC), a non-governmental, nonprofit organization was founded. The activities of the centre primarily involve the intellectual development of Palestinian children, and to reinforce a positive role for the child within Palestinian society and culture.[77]
TheUnited Nations Security Council adoptedResolution 904 condemning the massacre and called for measures to protect Palestinian civilians including disarming Israeli settlers.[78]
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg is correct when he asserts that in annexing Judea and Samaria (which he refers to as the West Bank), with its large Arab population, Israel would be endangering its Jewish character. According to statistics published by the Israeli Government in 1980, the Arabs of Israel have an average of eight children per household, as compared with an average of 2.9 children per Jewish home in Israel. However, Rabbi Hertzberg fails to note that even within the pre-1967 borders of Israel this same disparity of birth rates, associated with a declining Aliyah, assures Israel of an Arab majority in Israel (70 years?) unless steps are taken to prevent this from occurring. Ceding the "West Bank" to the "Palestinians" would, therefore, not solve the problem which Rabbi Hertzberg raises; it would serve only to further jeopardize Israel's security and betray a Biblical trust.
The harsh reality is: if Israel is to avert facing the kinds of problems found in Northern Ireland today, it must act decisively to remove the Arab minority from within its borders. This could be accomplished by initially offering encouragement and incentives to Arabs to leave of their own accord, just as the Jewish population of many Arab countries has been persuaded to leave, one way or another. Before instinctively defending democracy as inviolate, Israelis should consider whether the prospect of an Arab majority electing 61 Arab Knesset members is acceptable to them. Israelis will soon have to choose between a Jewish state and a democratic one.
Baruch Goldstein Brooklyn, June 30, 1981.
Although Goldstein did not say anything during his attack to explain his actions, it is known that the night before his assault he had attended a service at the Jewish side of the Cave of the Patriarchs where after listening to the traditional reading from the Scroll of Esther, he told others there that they should all behave like Esther. The timing of his attack the next day at the same site hardly seems the product of happenstance or coincidence. It was the day of Purim. Moreover, although his actions seemed to be the product of a mind that had snapped or become depraved, there did not seem to be any sign that he was suffering from a mental disorder. His actions were deliberate and intentional. Goldstein was troubled by the ongoing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in Oslo and openly concerned that a Palestinian state was about to be created. His attack on Muslim worshippers at the same site, while Purim coincided with Ramadan, was an attempt to cast himself symbolically in the story as Mordecai. Indeed that was exactly the way his actions were interpreted by other settlers at Kiryat Arba, and in the years to come after 1994, there would be numerous instances in which the settlers would celebrate Purim by also invoking Goldstein's memory and image in a provocative manner.
Faced with rage in the territories and its own revulsion over the Hebron massacre, the P.L.O. has dug in on its demands that all settlers be disarmed and that an international force be created to protect Palestinians. Mr. Rabin has said no to both demands. But he [Rabin] has imposed tougher measures against a relatively small number of the most militant settlers, which, while far from what the Palestinians want, represents a significant shift for the Government. Several days after ordering the arrest of five people faithful to the anti-Arab preaching of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, the army began today to carry out other measures, telling 18 settlers to stay out of Arab towns and to turn in their army-issued rifles.
{{cite news}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)Did he kill innocent people? The same supposedly innocent people slaughter innocents in 1929... The whole city of Hebron slaughtered Jews then. Those are the 'innocent people' who were killed in the Tomb of the Patriarchs", said Ariel.
In 1994, Ginzburg was the only Orthodox rabbi of stature who praised Baruch Goldstein's massacre...
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