5754 Pivoting Toward The Future

was killed in his car just outside Hebron,
Jewish settlers in the West Bank and
Gaza blocked intersections with rocks
and burning tires, stoned Palestinians
and torched their property, dashed with
Israeli police and shot at several Pales-
tinians driving in their cars in the heart
of Samaria.
Amid this new phenomenon — a
"Jewish intifada" — Zvi Katzover, head
of the Kiryat Arba Local Council, ad-
vised on Israeli TV that no one should
be surprised if an "individual settler en-
ters some Arab village and cuts down
30 to 40 people, if there isn't some mur-
derous attack by [a settler] who can no
longer restrain himself"
Mr. Katzover was prescient. On the
eve of Purim in late February, a settler
walked into the mosque in Hebron's
Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and
opened fire, killing at least 39 Arabs.
The actions of Baruch Goldstein —
American by birth, physician by train-
ing, a follower of Meir Kahane by incli-
nation — were widely excoriated by
Israel's government and by Jews in Is-
rael and abroad. But not by all. The rab-
bi eulogizing him said "1 million Arabs
are not worth a Jewish fingernail" —
and a member of Israel's Kach Party
named his newborn son after him, hop-
ing the lad would "follow in Goldstein's
path."
The massacre was deemed the worst
setback to the peace process. Yet, fail,
somehow, it didn't, despite an Israeli
pullback from Gaza and Jericho that
was delayed from December to April

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