TIME: Almanac 1990s

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<text id=94TT0552> <title> Mar. 28, 1994: Hebron's Ugly Truths </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994 Mar. 28, 1994 Doomed:The Regal Tiger and Extinction </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> MIDDLE EAST, Page 38 Hebron's Ugly Truths </hdr> <body> Hints of a second shooter and revelations of official laxity raise the specter of high-level resignations By Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem Tragic but simple: that was Israel's official characterization of last month's massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron. The killer, a Jewish settler, was portrayed as a singular lunatic acting alone. The episode, it was said, could not have been foreseen or prevented, and Israeli security forces responded properly. But after two weeks of hearings by a state commission examining the slaughter, it does not look so elementary anymore. Baruch Goldstein, the Hebron triggerman, is no longer the sole subject of suspicion, now that witnesses say a second man may have been involved. More broadly, an entire national mind-set that enabled settlers to run amuck with shocking ease is on trial. While the U.S. struggled last week to contain the consequences of the massacre and bring the P.L.O. back to the negotiating table, the commission of inquiry kept turning up evidence casting doubt on Israel's original version of events. Two soldiers on duty at the mosque admitted they had opened fire in the direction of the fleeing worshippers, though they said they did not hit anyone. Their statements directly contradicted the army's contention that soldiers fired only in the air and lent weight to claims by Palestinian eyewitnesses that soldiers were responsible for at least one of the 29 deaths. Then the same soldiers cast doubts on the army's conclusion that Goldstein acted on his own. They testified that Goldstein entered the mosque carrying an M-16 rifle, not the Israeli-made Glilon (a shortened Galil assault rifle) that the army claimed fired all the shots inside the mosque. One of the soldiers said that another man entered the shrine shortly after Goldstein, with a Glilon. That aroused suspicion that Goldstein had an accomplice, as some Palestinians have contended. On Friday, the U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned the Hebron massacre, and Syria, Jordan and Lebanon agreed to resume their negotiations with Israel. Though the P.L.O. still wanted "concrete measures" to protect Palestinians before it went back to the bargaining table, it agreed to a high-level meeting with Israel this week in Tunis. Many Israelis were worrying almost as much about their country's behavior. Testimony has pointed to considerable official negligence. Security procedures were surprisingly lax at a shrine that has been a notorious flash point for tensions. Authorities did not take seriously the threat of settler mayhem, although warning signs were plentiful. And many were asking whether the security forces overreacted in the aftermath of the massacre. Before it is even completed, the inquiry is raising the specter of high-level resignations. For many citizens, the most dismaying revelation came at the beginning of the hearings from Deputy Commander Meir Tayar, who heads the paramilitary border police unit in Hebron. Standing orders, he said, forbade security forces from firing on Jewish settlers under any circumstances. He explained that if a settler opened fire, instructions were to "take cover and wait for the clip to finish, then stop him in some other way, not by shooting." The army argued that these orders applied only to situations in which lives were not endangered, not to murder. But testimony from other security guards at the Tomb showed that whatever the commanders intended, their orders were interpreted by many servicemen as absolute: no shooting at Jews. Since soldiers routinely open fire on Palestinians armed with nothing more than rocks, many Israelis were appalled by the double standard. Army commanders said they never issued directives covering a case like Goldstein's because they never imagined a Jew would commit such a crime. But for months, the entire country watched fanatical settlers publicly threaten violence to sabotage the promised onset of Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Officers of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal intelligence agency, told the commission that they had warned the military numerous times that radical settlers were likely to commit extreme acts. The Tomb of the Patriarchs was an obvious tinderbox. The military governor of Hebron, Colonel Shalom Goldstein, testified that 25 "incidents of friction" between Jewish and Muslim worshippers had been recorded there in the past year. Yet security discipline was slack. On the morning of the massacre, five of the six men who were supposed to be guarding the inside of the mosque were absent. Three arrived late, which one of them acknowledged was a common occurrence. While it seems a safe bet that the commission will ultimately find that Israeli negligence eased Goldstein's mission, the question is how high up it will assign blame. One possible victim is Lieut. General Ehud Barak, the military chief of staff who has been widely touted as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's preferred successor. Says a high-ranking army officer: "Barak used to be considered a wunderkind. The blunders made in the Tomb have tarnished his reputation." It is also conceivable that the commissioners will reach as high as the Defense Minister, who also happens to be Prime Minister Rabin. If so, he might be compelled to step down. Then Baruch Goldstein would have a hearty laugh from the grave. His aim was to destroy the Middle East peace process, and nothing would accomplish that better than the fall of Yitzhak Rabin. </body> </article> </text>