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The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre occurred on February 25, 1994 at the Cave of the Patriarchs, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. It is also known as the Mosque of Abraham massacre or the Hebron massacre (see Hebron massacre (disambiguation) for other uses of the term). The massacre occurred during the overlapping Jewish and Muslim religious holidays of Purim and Ramadan. The killings were perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein, a member of the extremist Kahanist movement. A total of 29 Palestinian Muslims were killed and another 125 injured, with Goldstein himself also being killed. In the aftermath, violent protests broke out across the Middle East and several dozen more Palestinians and Israelis were killed in clashes and attacks.
The massacre The Cave of the Patriarchs is divided into two sections, one for Jewish worshippers and the other for Muslim worshippers. The section for the Jewish worshippers includes the Abraham Hall, which is also used for Brit Mila ceremonies, and the Jacob Hall. A Yeshivah has also been set up. Numerous Jewish religious services take place every day in this section of the Cave. The section for Muslim worshippers includes the much larger Isaac Hall. On ten days in the year the entire cave is reserved for the exclusive use of Jewish worshippers and on ten other days in the year for the exclusive use of Muslim worshippers. At 05:00 on February 25, eight hundred 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 Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish resident of the Kiryat Arba settlement and member of the extremist Kahanist movement, entered the Isaac Hall of the cave. He was dressed in his army uniform and carrying an IMI Galil assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition, which held 35 bullets each. 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 with the weapon, killing 29 people and injuring another 125. He was eventually overwhelmed by survivors, who beat him to death. Reports after the massacre were inevitably highly confused. In particular, there was 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 also reports that he had thrown grenades into the worshippers. The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat claimed that the attack was the work of up to 12 men, including Israeli troops. However, a preliminary Israeli Army investigation found that there had been no use of grenades and that Goldstein had acted alone without the assistance or connivance of the Israeli guards posted at the cave. Israeli government Goldstein's actions were immediately condemned by the Israeli government, the mainstream Israeli parties and the Israeli populace in general. Spokespeople for all the organized denominations of Judaism denounced his act as immoral and as terrorism. The Kach movement, to which he belonged, was outlawed as a terrorist organization. The victims of the shooting received financial compensation. The cabinet agreed to take away the weapons of some right-wing extremists and put them in administrative detention. In an address to the Knesset, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin denounced the US-born Goldstein as a "foreign implant" and an "errant weed." He continued, "We say to this horrible man and those like him: you are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism." Binyamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud party declared, "This was a despicable crime. I express my unequivocal condemnation." Shamgar Commission The Israeli government appointed an official and independent commission of inquiry headed by then president of the Supreme Court, Judge Meir Shamgar. It found that: Jewish diaspora In Britain the 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." He continued, "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 fund-raising for Goldstein's victims. On the other hand, there were also articles and letters in the U.S. Jewish press claiming that Baruch Goldstein "pre-emptively struck, thus saving many Jewish lives." Protests and violence Angry mobs began rioting in the aftermath of the massacre, which led to the deaths of 26 more Palestinians and 9 Israelis. All over the Middle East, people demonstrated and rioted, attacked Jewish communities, and staged protests. At one such protest in Amman, Jordan, 77-year-old British tourist Howard Long was stabbed by Palestinian protestors. The attacker, Khalid Husni Al-Korashi, was subsequently arrested and the Jordanian Interior Ministry called for its citizens to show calm and restraint in their response. Other reactions Goldstein is not known to have given any reasons for his actions. However, immediately after the attack, Mike Guzofsky, spokesman for Kahane Chai in New York and a close friend of Goldstein said, "He wanted to stop the peace process dead. He couldn't have picked a better day – Purim, when Jews fight back." At Goldstein's eulogy Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba stated: "Goldstein could not continue to bear all the cases he was seeing as a doctor; he might have gone insane from all he went through." Goldstein has allegdly said "I'm not capable anymore" shortly before the attack. The Kiryat Arba council announced that they're participating in the pain and sorrow of the families of the dead, but they're pointing blame towards the Israeli government. A poll of 500 Israeli adults for the International Centre for Peace in the Middle East found that 78.8 percent of people condemned the Hebron massacre while 3.6 percent praised Goldstein See also | ||||||||
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