Newspaper Article

FOR ISRAEL, A TIME TO REIN IN TERROR

Yossi Melman. Yossi Melman, an Israeli journalist, is co-author of "Friends In Deed: Inside the U.S. Israel Alliance," to be published by Hyperion

1994

Overview

The massacre last week of dozens of Palestinian worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank town of Hebron by a Jewish settler urgently calls for a strong and dramatic reaction. Condolence, apology and condemnation as publicly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and privately in a phone conversation with the PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, are no longer sufficient. The Israeli government, which under international law is legally responsible for the occupied territories and the protection of a Palestinian population numbering 2 million, should now disarm the paramilitary units of Jewish settlers in the area. The killing at the holy site shared by Jews and Muslims was the act of a religiously fanatical lone gunman. It was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American Jew, who emigrated to Israel 11 years ago to follow his leader, the late American rabbi Meir Kahane. Before his murder in 1991 by Muslim fundamentalists, Kahane had led a small group of followers who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.

• Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC