What is on mind mind were some comments regarding Dr Baruch Goldstein.
Allow me as someone who is very secular and in the visceral reality of the "boots on the ground" experience had served many years in the IDF first in regular service and later many many long years as a combat medic in reserves to comment.
I served in Gaza, Lebanon and in the "Shtachim" (Territories)....
I was a delegate of the Labor Party -under our long time Mayor and Labor Party Member of Knesset Shlomo Bouchbout from the Western Galilee. I knew Shimon Peres, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Bellin (aka "The Poodle") of the "Peace Camp".
I was an associate of the Rabin "Hawk" camp of Yigal Allon- who I knew from my days on Kibbutz Ashdot Yakov, "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer and Avraham "Beiga" Shochat.
I worked together with Faud on the "Good Fence" and became acquainted with Rav Seren (Major South Lebanese Army) Sa'ad Hadad.
Many years ago following the signing of the Oslo Acords of September 1993 my resrve unit was assigned in January 1994 to do guard duty in the old city of Hebron.(Beit Levinson and the Casbah).
During my reserve stint I met several of the the most outspoken and visible leaders e activists of Gush Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful), the "Greater Israel" (Eretz Yisrael Hashlema) movement.
Rav Moshe Levinger who led the "illegal" resettlement of Hebron in 1968, Daniella Weiss, Hanan Porat of Kfar Etzion, Beni Katzover and Menachem Felix leaders behind the Elon Moreh settlement attempts in Samaria.
I remember the "anti-Secular anti-Labor Party antagonists" extremism of some of the Orthodox inhabitants who labeled us as being "anti Eretz Yisrael"!
As I walked the Alley ways of the Casbah at sunset or at dawn during that the Moslem holy month of Ramadan and it was the Jewish holiday of Purim. I remembered what had been before in the horrific pogrom of 1929.
I also remembered the words of David Ben Gurion of how one of his deepest regrets was the inability -lack of men and weapons to free Hebron.
David Ben-Gurion who was the titular head of the Labor Party and many of the first leaders never were originally "anti-land." It was a movement of pioneers (Halutzim) who understood the historical and spiritual weight of Hebron just as much as the Gush Emunim activists did, even if they differed on the "how" and "when" of settlement.
Ben Gurion even wrote the introduction to the book Sefer Hebron (The Book of Hebron) by Oded Avisar (1970), about the Religious Significance of Hebron to the Jewish People.
I was present, several times, at the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Hebron and the area. I treated those injured alongside Dr Goldstein.
During the times I spent there we had several occaisions to talk.
Though I did not really appreciate some of the "extremist" views he possessed, I witnessed how he lived in a state of constant, unremitting trauma from murderous - barbaric attacks, constant harassment and provocations by Arabs which had affected him.
The murder of a close friend of his Mordechai Lapid played deeply upon his soul. Dr Goldstein had reached his "breaking point" that Friday morning of February 25, 1994 in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Ma'arat HaMachpelah).
After two weeks even the members of my reserve unit and my medic team were affected by the extremism in the local Arab population.
As for the foreknowledge of a possible attack from the "Machpelah" we would hear the daily Adhan (the call to prayer) by the "Wazin"-Muezzin (the crier).
One of my medics was a Syrian Jew and he had heard their conversations as we made our patrols through the Casbah as well as the calls from the Minarets. We notified our superiors but they only listened.
What really ticked me off -and my fellow reservists were all those snide B'Tselem "Joos" and those Western Elitist Pro Palestinian sympathizers who came and were horrifically antogonistic and offensive to me and my fellow IDF reservists - some of whom were even from "Leftist" Kibbutzim who were called up to serve.
Allow me to tell you that prior to being sent to the "Stachim" to serve -some of my men were anti-settler and anti-occupation but after a month of abuse from aholes from "The Greater Tel Aviv Area" minds changed.
As to the actions of Dr Goldstein, his attack on innocent Arabs at prayer I fully understand the "human" cost that motivated him.
Seeing a doctor—someone sworn to save lives—becoming a perpetrator of a massacre is a harrowing transformation.
As for the "Stain" from perspective of the "Purity of Arms" (Tohar HaNeshek) doctrine of the Left in Israel, Dr Goldstein's act was a breakdown of the system.
But from my perspective as someone who stood in those infirmaries and walked those alleys, I saw it for what it truly was: an explosion within a pressure cooker.
When you are a doctor sworn to heal, yet you are constantly forced to triage the victims of barbaric, unremitting provocations—while the 'higher-ups' listen to the warnings but refuse to act—the human soul reaches a breaking point.
The stain wasn't just on one man; it was on the naivety of a leadership that thought they could manage the pressure without it eventually blowing the lid off."
The events of October 7th 2023 caused a radical shift in the Israeli psyche as the entire nation saw what happens when that pressure is ignored by those who prefer 'conceptual maps' over the visceral reality of the Shtachim.
October 7th has finally shown the rest of the country what we as reservists in the Shtachim felt decades ago: that 'Purity of Arms' cannot exist in a vacuum when the enemy views your very existence as a 'main meal.'
The events of that terrible October 7th has forced many who identified with the "Peace Camp" or organizations like B'Tselem to confront the reality of the uncompromising nature of the conflict within the framework of Dar al-Islam.
HOW MANY of those "anshe Meretz" and B"Tselem activists -who I knew that were horrifically butchered and burned, their wives and daughters raped, children and grandchildren...
Yes, not ALL arabs are "bad".
I still live and work here in the Ma'alot area. I speak with my Arab neighbors daily, and we share the same air and the same soil. But I no longer have the luxury of the 'Peace Camp' delusions I once witnessed in the halls of the Labor Party.
As I have repeated many times, as inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael, you / we need to see everything in the uncompromising nature of the conflict within the framework of Dar al-Islam.
As Major Sa'ad Hadad once told me and Faud - "You Jews are the main meal, but we Christians are the "dessert" (the sweet course)". His remark that day remains one of the most chillingly accurate summaries of that of a Middle Eastern minority experience.
It underscores the shared fate of anyone who does not fit into the pan-Islamic vision of the region.
I remember the old British Police Station that housed the Levingers and a few others before Kiryat Arba became a reality. It never crossed my mind that their presence there was “illegal” and possibly offensive to the Muslim Population. After. All, the Israelis were less oppressive than their former Hashemite rulers. Sometimes I wander back there in my thoughts. It seemed so natural for them to be there. I don’t mean it was natural to live in a former police station but the scurrying about of so many children, noise of everyday life, playing…I couldn’t see these people other than normal religious Jews I would find in Brooklyn, New York. After all Moshe and Miriam were American Orthodox Jews. And the fit in Hebron with their long skirts ( the women), the covered heads, and their desire to blend into the background of Holy Land Life. I found it difficult to believe that Muslims cared if Jews lived among them. Especially when these Jews paid premium dollars to purchase land parcels. And the new commerce that uplifted the Muslim Population. I was so bloody Hell naive! My beautiful Jewish American Princess upbringing was so indoctrinated into me that I couldn’t fathom that a Muslim would reject a Jewish influx that would uplift his standard of living to heights he never imagined! Jump through the time barrier to October 23, 2023 and I had such a traumatic awakening that I too could have done that same act in anger! I broke on that day as I opened the news. But my eyes are open now and my emotions are under control. Like me, so many Jews have a very difficult time accepting the pressure of hate.
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