Baruch Goldstein & the Hebron Massacre

On 25th February 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler from the illegal Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, walked in to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and carried out a massacre opening fire on Muslim worshippers praying inside. He killed 29 people and wounded a further 125 before being beaten to death by other worshippers, he carried out the attack during the holy month of Ramadan.

The next days Belfast Newsletter says that Goldstein was armed with an “automatic Galil rifle which can spit out at the rate of 750 [rounds] a minute.” The newsletter reports: “When the first clip of bullets was spent he threw a grenade, emptied three more magazines and hurled two more grenades, said survivor Abdel Hafez Idries”

“When Goldstein stopped shooting after several minutes dozens of bodies and scores more wounded lay on the carpeted floor of the mosque” Goldstein was then beaten to death by survivors. Such was the carnage inside the mosque that one worshiper Maher Imam said “It was so slippery from the blood that I fell twice to the ground”

Born in Brooklyn in New York Goldstein was a doctor who moved to Israel in 1983 and served in the Israeli Army. The Scotsman of 26th February reports that  after the massacre Israeli Army radio “re-broadcast an interview made with Goldstein in November [1993] after he treated a Jewish man hacked by two Arabs with axes.....Goldstein said: “Again the Arab Nazi enemy who strives to attack any Jew just because he is a Jew in the land of Israel, has hurt a Jew. The army doesn’t do its job…We are sick and tired of this and with God’s help we will create the State of Judea here and we will know how to handle them ourselves”

However Goldstein’s hatred of Arabs predates this attack, he was already a member of the extremist Kach Party*(see below)  and The Scotsman, quoting a source who asked not to be named said “Goldstein had refused to treat wounded Arabs while serving as an army doctor during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980’s.” This included Arab civilians and even Arabs serving in the Israeli Army.

In one incident “[An] Arab was brought to an army clinic for treatment, but Goldstein refused to treat him. Another army physician had to be summoned to substitute for Goldstein. The officer did not explain why Goldstein was thereafter not demoted in rank but was rather allowed to keep performing his duties in the reserves. Incidentally, his misconduct also constituted a violation of the oath he had taken upon becoming a doctor”

In the seven days following the massacre more Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Army as they protested and rioted against the massacre occupation. On March 4th the Christian Science Monitor said that, according to Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem, a further 21 Palestinians had been killed.

Despite a far greater number of Palestinians being killed it was they and not Jewish settlers who were placed under curfew. “A week after the Hebron massacre, with most of the West Bank still under 24-hour curfew and all Palestinians banned from entering Israel, Palestinians are complaining bitterly that they are being doubly victimised...[Palestinians are] forbidden to leave their homes for any reason” 

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said the curfew was justified “to suppress the possibility of confrontation. Better to be under curfew than to bring about bloodshed.'' The curfew would continue "for as long as we believe it is needed. We have to bear in mind the tendency of revenge still in the minds and hearts of many Palestinians……I don't need casualties on the Israeli side in addition to the terrible event in Hebron.'' Ghassan al-Khatib, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team to the Middle East peace talks said “It is very frustrating that while the victims are confined to their homes, the settlers move about freely,'' 

Goldstein was buried in Kiryat Arba, the Daily Mirror reports that at his funeral he was “hailed a hero by settlers....one rabbi claimed: “a million Arabs are not worth one Jewish fingernail”” **

In December 1999, after a law came into force prohibiting monuments to terrorists, the Israeli Army dismantled the shrine to Goldstein at his burial site. The Irish times says that “Goldsteins father, Israel, lay down on the grave, sobbing and declaring his son a ’saint’’ as a bulldozer moved in. He was removed by soldiers as protesters chanted “Day of shame for the state of Israel”

One year after the massacre Israels current security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, “dressed as Goldstein for the Jewish holiday of Purim, saying: “He is my hero.” He also hung a portrait of Goldstein on the wall of his home only taking it down in the hope allying with Naftali Bennett leader of the New Right party.

* In 1984 he was third on the Kach Party list to become an MP, that year Kach only won one seat, had they won three Goldstein would have been elected to the Israeli parliament

**A quote usually attributed to Rabbi Yaacov Perrin.