Hebron reveals bitter truth
International Viewpoint #254 March 1994
AS we went to press, the death toll of the Hebron massacre was the following: 47 Palestinians killed in the Ibrahim mosque by the settler Baroukh Goldstein -and no doubt by soldiers also -and 19 Palestinians killed by the army during the demonstrations that followed the massacre. To these figures must be added the Palestinian killed by a settler in Bethlehem while a bus was being stoned by young demonstrators. There are not words to describe such a crime, for which the entire Israeli people is in part responsible. To say Goldstein was mentally disturbed is an easy way out, and lets the assassin and all those who allowed the massacre to take place off the hook. We asked our Jerusalem correspondent for his initial reaction. MICHEL WARSCHAWSKY Jerusalem, 1 March 1994
IT was inevitable. Two months ago we had already alerted public opinion and warned the government and the army that if the army did not radically alter its policy and continued to let the settlers do as they pleased, it would end in a bloodbath. [...] As during the massacres at Shabra and Shatila in 1982, the government cannot whitewash what has happened and say that this massacre took them by surprise. The government consciously allowed things to deteriorate. The responsibility for the Hebron is entirely with the Israeli government." This is how the Peace Block and the Committee of Solidarity with Hebron replied, in a joint communiqué, to Yitshak Rabin's declaration that the massacre was a crazed act perpetrated by a psychopath."
In the end, it has required a bloodbath for a twin truth to capture the attention of a large sector of the Israeli population. Firstly, there is the fact that in
### PALESTINE
Hebron there are groups of settlers who are prepared to do anything to prevent a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. Secondly, it is clear that even achieving the measures set by the Oslo Accords requires the rapid dismantling of settlements in the Occupied Territo-
Is Rabin and his team so blind and stupid to not have understood this before? To speak of stupidity is no less simplistic than to speak of madness. Behind Rabin's supposed blindness, there is a strategy that sees settlers as bargaining chips to be negotiated against new compromises from the Palestinians. This is why the Israeli prime minister refuses to pay compensation to settlers ready to leave the colonies - who, according to the latest polls, represent more than 35% of settlers, not including East Jerusalem.
### Settler violence
With this in mind, it is not difficult to imagine that the government and the Security Services intentionally let the situation deteriorate - in the hope of using settler violence as a way of pressuring the Palestinians, and also as a pretext to make concessions to them. This is a hypothesis that many Israeli commentators have made since the massacre. These commentators cannot explain how an activist from a far-right organisation closely watched by the Security Services and which has never hidden its criminal intentions could carry out his plan.
The Official Commission of Inquiry set up by the government is going to try to answer this question. The Commission's official mandate is to determine who was responsible, on all levels, for the massacre. "Official because its raison d'être - like that of the commission set up after the massacres at Shabra and Shatila in 1982 — is to put an end to public debate and to prove to international public opinion that there is no reason to accuse the government since it has set up a commission which will establish the facts and determine the guilty parties.
This initiative, put forward once again by the left, is a way to allow the Israeli State to protect itself against criticism from all sides. There are other such devices, for example the unanimous motion (except for the Communist party and allied deputies) which closed the Knesset debate with a denunciation of the massacre but also a warning against collectively accusing the settlers.
This unanimous vote brought Shulamit Aloni and David Tsuker from Merets together with Rehavam Zeevi, who systematically calls for the death of Palestinians, and Hanan Porat, who on the day of the massacre arrived disguised and drunk at a meeting of the settler leadership saying that Jewish law forbid sadness on that day. The vote serves to separate Israel as a whole from the crime, to marginalise the assassin and thus to absolve the State and its institutions of all responsibility, either director
This is not only indecent, it is outright complicity. But this is how the Israeli Establishment reacts when it is confronted with a major crisis — by closing ranks in relation to the international community and its criticisms.
After having chosen the necessary means for neutralising internal and external criticisms, the task is now that of preventing damage to the negotiations process. Yasser Arafat, publicly accused of betrayal by the enraged Palestinian masses, is going to try to secure new concessions from Israel, in particular in relation to the presence of foreign troops in the Occupied Territories and for the dismantling of some colonies.
Rabin has said that he is not opposed to the presence of foreign observers in the autonomous Palestinian territories, and that he would release a thousand prisoners in the coming days.
The Palestinian response was quick. "Sometimes it is preferable to do nothing than to give meaningless crumbs," declared Faisal Husseini on Israeli radio, providing an accurate reflection of popular feeling throughout the Occupied Territo-
What the Palestinians have a right to demand - and the international community must implement - is real, and not symbolic, international protection throughout the Occupied Territories. They have a right to demand the renegotiation of the Oslo Accords - with the dismantling of Israeli settlements as a precondition to any agreement. *
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