Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994 TAG: 9402270021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GLENN FRANKEL THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn-born Jewish settler who mowed down dozens of Palestinians at a mosque, was not just a lone gunman. He represented not only the radical fringe of Israel's settlement movement, but in a larger sense advanced the cause of extremists from the Islamic side as well.
Both sides have a common goal: to destroy the peace process before it gains enough popular support and momentum to become irreversible. And both invoke a long tradition - the history of the Middle East is a graveyard of hopes that were killed off by men of violence.
Goldstein's shooting spree illustrates that the real war in the Middle East is no longer between Arabs and Jews, but between moderates and extremists - those who want to resolve the old conflicts and move forward to a different future, versus those who demand that the blood feud be honored and sustained.
For several years now, beginning with the Madrid peace conference in October 1991 and continuing through last September's historic signing of the accord, in principle, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on the White House lawn, the moderates have been winning.
Despite countless delays and setbacks, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat were inching toward agreeing on the practical arrangements of their accord.
Now they face a far more difficult test. First comes the immediate challenge of finding a way to suppress the widespread Palestinian rioting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip without causing more bloodshed. At the same time, the Israeli government must face a problem that it has long put off: cracking down on its own citizens, the heavily armed and relentlessly belligerent radicals within the settler movement.
The massacre has strengthened Rabin's hand in dealing with his own radicals and perhaps in making concessions to Arafat.
Most Israelis seemed appalled by the slaughter and by the enthusiastic support expressed by settler extremists in Hebron and nearby Kiryat Arba, where Goldstein was from. Some feel an added sense of shame because Goldstein killed unarmed worshipers who were supposed to be protected by the Israeli army.
The killings are certain to compound the desire of mainstream Israelis to separate themselves and their country from most of the West Bank and Gaza - and from the Jewish settlers who insist on remaining there.
"Even those Israelis who are most insensitive to Arab life are not proud of this," said Harry Wall, the representative of the Anti-Defamation League in Israel. "It reinforces the view that what goes on out there is the Wild West - theirs and ours - and Israel should separate itself from there."
The killings have also clearly harmed Arafat, whose credibility as leader of the Palestinians was already sagging. Three years ago during another massacre - the killing of 18 Palestinians by Israeli police in a riot at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - Faisal Husseini, Arafat's chief representative in the West Bank, stood with fellow Arabs and cradled the bodies of the dead and wounded. Friday, Husseini was pelted with stones and forced to leave that same area during protests against the killings in Hebron.
Not only has Arafat yet to deliver on the promise of the September accord - that Palestinians would be freed from the bonds of the 27-year occupation - he has now failed to protect them from slaughter at the hands of their enemy. President Clinton's swift move in inviting negotiators from both sides to Washington was designed to shore up Arafat's position and rescue his credibility.
Palestinians in the occupied territories have long seen themselves as the conflict's passive victims, preyed upon by forces outside their control, able to influence events only by spasms of violence. It was only with the coming of the Palestinian uprising in December 1987 that they began to take control of their own destiny and demand change, from Israel and from their own leadership.
The fear of some Palestinian leaders is that the events of recent months - the lack of progress in the peace talks, the continued occupation and now the massacre - will thrust Arabs back into the old role and derail the peace process.
"I fear a madman from our side will create another tragedy," said Jad Isaac, a West Bank academic who advises the Palestinian negotiating team.
"Emotions are very high. Everyone is talking revenge, and everyone is saying we have nothing more to lose."
Goldstein is the latest in a long line of killers who have set the terms of the conflict between Arabs and Jews, and Hebron has long been their foremost setting.
Its history of bloodshed dates to 1929 when 67 Jews were massacred by Arabs during British rule. Jewish settlers who began returning to the area after Israel's victory in the 1967 Middle East war still cite the slaughter as justification for their heavy-handed tactics and occasional outbursts of violence against Palestinians.
Palestinians and settlers live closer in Hebron than anywhere else in Israel and the occupied territories - and hate each other more.
In 1980 Palestinians using hand grenades and automatic rifles killed six Jewish settlers and wounded 16. Three years later, after a Jewish student was fatally stabbed, settler vigilantes opened fire at unarmed students at the Islamic College, killing three Arabs and wounding 33 others.
"Hebron," said Israeli philosophy professor Avishai Margalit, "is a laboratory for craziness. It's Sarajevo terms there."
The city has attracted fundamentalists from both faiths who view each other in apocalyptic terms. There is a fringe element of Jewish settlers who believe an apocalypse must occur before the Messiah comes to earth and who are prepared to take violent steps to hasten that prophecy. There are Islamic extremists who believe the land must be purged of Jews.
In the end, analysts say, Friday's killings may destroy the process or may provide more impetus for getting the deal completed. Moderates on both sides, who tend to be passive, must now assert their own wishes. Rabin and Arafat, who have stalled the accord over seemingly minor issues, may feel compelled to conclude their agreement.
"Arafat and Rabin have to work together because they need each other," said Wall. "This will be the real test for both."
by CNB