It may be pure coincidence, but a thick black line binds together the murder of 29 Palestinian worshipers by the settler Baruch Goldstein at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Feb. 25, 1994, and the debate held on Feb. 25 on a proposal to impose Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount.
In the week that Goldstein left his home in the settlement of Kiryat Arba for his bloody killing spree, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was making the final preparations for the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho. Giant banners appeared on Israel’s roads: “Stop Oslo” and “Oslo Criminals to Court.” Documents that fell into the hands of the IDF during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield showed that following the 1994 massacre in Hebron, the Hamas religious leadership lifted its objection to suicide attacks. Until then, all suicide attacks were carried out solely by members of Islamic Jihad. The wave of suicide attacks that ensued completely eroded the Israeli public’s belief in the Oslo Accord.
