Crisis In Hebron

Choosin
Between
Peace Or
Settlements

tO,

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The unintended result of the Hebron
massacre may be to end Israel's tolerance
of radical settlers.

INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

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"The time has come for
you to go.
Live where you like,
but not among us.
Die where you please,
but not among us.
...Get out of our soil,
our sea, our wheat,
our salt, our wounds
...[Get] out of the
memory of our memo-
ries...

J EWIS H NEWS

"

Dr. Baruch Goldstein treats an Israeli soldier in an
ambulance In October of 1992.

erusalem — Those
lines, written six years
ago by Mahmoud Dar-
wish, the poet laureate
of the Palestinian na-
tional movement, echo
today as probably the
best expression of the
Palestinian mood toward the
Jewish settlers living in their
midst. And after the massacre
in the Cave of the Patriarchs,
more and more Israelis, in-
cluding government ministers,
have begun to understand that
sentiment — at least as far as
the Jewish settlement in He-
bron is concerned.
Tourism Minister Uzi Baram
and Housing Minister Ben-

yamin Ben-Eliezer, both of the
Labor Party, have proposed
that the 460 settlers living in
Hebron (as distinguished from
the 4,600 living in the adjoin-
ing settlement of Kiryat Arba)
be removed from the city, "to go
wherever they choose," in Mr.
Baram's words.
The alternative, said Mr.
Ben-Eliezer, is "to guard them
day and night, watch their
every step, and prevent them
from moving.
"...It's impossible to dream of
autonomy and it's impossible to
talk about co-existence, to say
`We're going ahead with this
[peace] process,' when you see

people who are forcefully
leading to a clash."
A television poll taken
among ministers found that
a majority of them agree
that the settlers in Hebron
must go.
That may indeed come to
pass. But the PLO's desire
to raise the entire settle-
ment issue for discussion
now (rather than in the
talks on a final settlement)
and have Kiryat Arba and
the settlements in the Gaza
Strip be dismantled forth-
with definitely will not.
Speaking before the Confer-
ence of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organiza-
tions on Monday, Prime Minis-
ter Yitzhak Rabin made it clear
that his government is not pre-
pared to consider any amend-
ment of the Oslo and Cairo
accords.
Nonetheless, Dr. Baruch
Goldstein has done the very op-
posite of what he undoubtedly
intended and has placed the
question of the settlements at
the top of the agenda in Israel.
Even the prime minister, while
not committing himself to ac-
tion on the matter, told the Con-
ference of Presidents that: "I

'•••,•• ••,••••

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supported Kiryat Arba, but I
was always opposed to a Jew-
ish presence in Hebron."
Where does one draw the po-
litical and ideological line be-
tween the two?
To their horror, as a result of
the massacre, the 135,000 Jew-
ish settlers in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip find themselves
saddled with a terrible "image
problem" as they are lumped
together with the rabid racists
of the Kach and Kahane Chai
movements.
This is not just unfair, "it's
a lie," raged Rabbi Yoel Bin-
Nun, a leading ideologist of the

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Gush Emunim movement who
for years has been engaged in
his own struggle, "at a high per-
sonal cost, including threats
against me," with the extrem-
ists in the territories.
"I know people in Kiryat
Arba," Mr. Bin-Nun testified,
"and I am convinced that the
majority there feels revulsion
toward this [massacre]. There's
a great gap between the ideol-
ogy of Kahane and that of Gush
Emunim...and those who join
the two together are doing so
for political reasons."
Yet in many ways, the at-
tempts by Mr. Bin-Nun and

