The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque
massacre or Hebron massacre, was a shooting massacre carried out by
American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein, also a member of the far-right Israeli Kach
movement. On February 25, 1994, Goldstein opened fire on a large number
of Palestinian Muslims who had gathered to pray inside the Ibrahimi Mosque, at
the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, West Bank. It took place on February 25,
1994, during the overlapping religious holidays of both Jewish Purim and Muslim
Ramadan. The attack left 29 people dead and 125 wounded. Goldstein was only
stopped after he was overpowered and beaten to death by survivors.
The massacre immediately set off mass Palestinian protests and riots
throughout the West Bank, and within 48 hours, nine Palestinian protesters had
been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. Goldstein was widely denounced
in Israel and by communities in the Jewish diaspora, with many attributing
his act to insanity. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the
attack, describing Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer", "a shame on
Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism". Some Jewish settlers in Hebron
laud him as a hero and view his attack and subsequent death as an act of
martyrdom. Background of Baruch Goldstein
In the 1970s, Baruch Goldstein, who was born and lived in Brooklyn, New York,
was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League, a militant group deemed
terrorist by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an anti-Arab hate
group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
After emigrating to Israel in 1983, he served as a physician in the Israeli
Defense Force, first as a conscript, then in the reserve forces. Following
the end of his active duty, Goldstein worked as a physician and lived in the
Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron, where he served as an emergency doctor.
Israeli press reports stated that Goldstein refused to treat Arabs, even
those serving in the IDF; this was also reflected in comments by his
acquaintances. Goldstein became involved with Kach, and
maintained a strong personal relationship with Rabbi Meir Kahane, the
militant Jewish nationalist whose views, regarded by the Israeli government as
racist, had caused his party to be banned from the Knesset in 1988. Kahane
was assassinated in 1990 by Arab militant El Sayyid Nosair, and Goldstein
reportedly swore to take revenge for the killing.
Goldstein expressed anti-Arab feelings far before the massacre. He was known to
refuse to treat Druze soldiers who served in the West Bank, believing it
was against Jewish laws to treat non-Jews even for pay. In 1981,
Goldstein wrote a letter, published in The 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". 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 to Yitzhak 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. Four years before the massacre,
an agent of Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, who had
infiltrated Kach, 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."
Massacre The Israeli government divided the Cave
of the Patriarchs into two sections, one for Jewish worshippers and the other for
Muslim worshippers. At 5:00 a.m. on 25 February, 800 Palestinian Muslims passed
through the east gate of the cave to participate in Fajr, the first of the
five daily Islamic prayers. The cave was under Israeli 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, Goldstein entered
the Isaac Hall of the cave. He was dressed in his army uniform and carried
an IMI Galil assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition, which held a
total of 140 rounds in 35 rounds per each 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 cave and positioned to the rear of the Muslim worshippers, he opened fire,
killing 29 people and wounding another 125. There were reports that he had
thrown grenades at the worshippers. According to survivors, he bided his
time until sojud, the prayer said while worshippers kneel towards Mecca. After
someone in the crowd hurled a fire extinguisher, which struck him on the
head, he was overcome and then beaten to death.
Reports after the massacre were often contradictory or ambiguous. 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". 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 different
Palestinian eyewitnesses, many of whom were confined to hospital beds with
gunshot wounds, and thus "unable to compare notes". 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. During the inquiry, an Israeli army official said three
worshippers died in the stampede following the attack and five
Palestinians were killed in street battles within Hebron later that day.
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 had gathered at the hospital. She also reported that in the following
48 hours, 7 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 injured by soldiers at
demonstrations. In the first 6 days following the massacres,” 21
Palestinians were killed by live ammunition from the IDF.
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, Sgt. Kobi Yosef and Sgt. Niv Drori, later
testified to firing four shots "chest high". 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.
Casualties List provided by the Palestine Human
Rights Information Center. Response
= Israeli government= The Kach movement, with which Goldstein
was affiliated, was outlawed as a terrorist organization. The cabinet
decided to confiscate the weapons of some they regarded as right-wing
extremists and put them in administrative detention. The Israeli
government also took extreme measures against Palestinians following the
massacre, banning them from certain streets in Hebron, such as Al-Shuhada
Street, where many Palestinians have homes and businesses, and opening them
to the exclusive access of Jewish Israelis and foreign tourists.
In an address to the Knesset, 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 on Zionism and an embarrassment to
Judaism. Rabin, who regarded settlements as a
cancer on Israeli society, considered that his failure to close down the
Jewish settlements in Hebron after the massacre one of his greatest political
mistakes. Benjamin Netanyahu, then head of the
Likud party, declared, "This was a despicable crime. I express my
unequivocal condemnation." Shamgar Commission
The Israeli government appointed a commission of inquiry headed by then
president of the Supreme 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: Goldstein acted alone in planning the
massacre, telling no one of his scheme. Coordination between the IDF, the
police, and the Civil Administration was problematic.
The political leadership and security forces could not have been expected to
predict the massacre. Testimony from survivors referring to
IDF assistance and grenade explosions in the massacre was found to be
contradictory and inconsistent; investigators did not find any grenade
fragments.[3] There were, as claimed by some Jews
seeking to justify Goldstein's actions as a preemptive strike, substantial
warnings of a coming Hamas terror attack against Jews. It further stated:
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, who shouted hostile slogans, [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."
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."
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 are against international law.
= Israeli public= There was widespread condemnation of the
massacre in Israel. A poll found that 78.8% of Israeli adults condemned the
Hebron massacre while 3.6% praised Goldstein. The Jewish Settler Council
declared that the act was "not Jewish, not humane."
Most religious leaders denounced the attack. The Sephardi Chief Rabbi said "I
am simply ashamed that a Jew carried out such a villainous and irresponsible act"
and suggested that he be buried outside the cemetery. His Ashkenazi counterpart
Yisrael Meir Lau called it "a desecration of God's name." Rabbi Yehuda
Amital of Gush Etzion said Goldstein had "besmirched the Jewish nation and the
Torah." Some rabbis reacted with ambivalence to the massacre, and a few
praised Goldstein and called his undertaking "an act of martyrdom." In
eulogising Goldstein, Rabbi Israel Ariel called him a "holy martyr" and
questioned the innocence of the victims by claiming they were responsible for
the massacre of Hebron's Jews in 1929. Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba said he
was a saint whose "hands are innocent, his heart pure" and compared him to the
martyrs of the Holocaust. At the time, settler rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburgh was the
only prominent Orthodox rabbi who praised the massacre. He has since been
detained several times for espousing extremist views.
Veneration of Goldstein In the weeks following the massacre,
hundreds of Israelis traveled to Goldstein's grave to celebrate
Goldstein's actions. Some Hasidim danced and sang around his grave. Although the
government has said that those who celebrated the massacre represented only
a tiny minority of Israelis, a New York Times report states that Israeli
government claims may understate the phenomenon.
In a pamphlet titled Baruch HaGever 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 five Halachic principles.
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. The grave's epitaph said that Goldstein "gave his
life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land". In 1999, after the passing of
Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli army acted to
dismantle the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his
interment. 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.
= Jewish diaspora= In the United Kingdom, Chief Rabbi Dr.
Jonathan Sacks stated, Such an act is an obscenity and a
travesty of Jewish values. That it should have been perpetrated against
worshippers in a house of prayer at a holy time makes it a blasphemy 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.
An editorial in The Jewish Chronicle written by Chaim 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. The
same edition also reported that some liberal synagogues in the UK had begun
fundraising for Goldstein's victims. = Palestinian public=
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. The Israeli army
reported five Palestinians killed in clashes the same day within Hebron.
Clashes in Hebron continued into May when 10 Palestinians were wounded by
fire from settlers and Israeli soldiers. As a reaction to the trauma induced in
children in Hebron, the Palestinian Child Arts Center, 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.
Two separate suicide bombings took place in March 1994, carried out by
Palestinian militants inside Israel and launched by Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam
Brigades, in retaliation for the massacre carried out by Goldstein. A
total of 15 Israeli civilians were killed and 34 wounded in the attack,
which took place in Afula on April 6, at the end of the forty day mourning period
for Goldstein's victims. Those were the first suicide bombings carried out by
Palestinian fighters inside Israel. According to Matti Steinberg, who, at
the time, was the Shin Bet head's advisor on Palestinian affairs, up until
then Hamas had refused to attack civilian targets inside Israel, and the
change in Hamas' policy was a result of Goldstein's massacre.
= United Nations= The United Nations Security Council
adopted Resolution 904 condemning the massacre and called for measures to
protect Palestinian civilians including disarming Israeli settlers.
Alternative names The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre is
also referred to as the Tomb of the Patriarchs massacre and the Hebron
massacre, one of two events given that name, the other being the 1929 Hebron
massacre. See also
List of massacres in the Palestinian territories
1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting, an act carried out in response to the massacre
Notes References
Bibliography Hacohen, Aviad. Commitment and
Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval: Selections from the Writings
of Rabbi Yehuda Amital. KTAV Publishing House. ISBN 1602800308.
Inbari, Motti. Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial
Compromises. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107009127.
Jacobson, David C.. Israeli Poetry and the Bible. Wayne State University Press.
ISBN 0814326234. Lichtenstein, Aharon; Lior, Dov. "A
Rabbinic Exchange on Baruch Goldstein's Funeral". Tradition 28. Rabbinical
Council of America. pp. 59–63. Linnan, David K.. Enemy Combatants,
Terrorism, and Armed Conflict Law: A Guide to the Issues. Praeger Security
International Series. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 0275998142.
Oliver, Anne Marie; Steinberg, Paul F.. The Road to Martyrs' Square : A Journey
into the World of the Suicide Bomber: A Journey into the World of the Suicide
Bomber. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198027567.
Rayner, John D.. A Jewish Understanding of the World. Berghahn Books. ISBN
1571819746. Vitullo, Anita. The massacre in al-Haram
al-Ibrahimi al-Sharif. Palestine Human Rights Information Center.
Waxman, Chaim I.. "It’s Not All Religious Fundamentalism". In Cohen,
Richard I. Visualizing and Exhibiting Jewish Space and History. Studies in
Contemporary Jewry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019993424X.