After Baruch Goldstein– a resident of the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba– slaughtered 29 Palestinians praying at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994, then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin said exactly what needed to be said:
I am shamed over the disgrace imposed upon us by a degenerate murderer. You are not part of the community of Israel. You are not part of the democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.
Precisely the same words can and should be applied to the Jewish residents of east Jerusalem’s predominantly-Arab Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood who sang in celebration of Goldstein at a Purim party.
I agree with Assaf Sharon, one of the Israeli activists who is planning to demonstrate Saturday in protest of the disgusting display.
[I]t is important that people come and demand from the government and the Jerusalem municipality to stop the settlement enterprise in the east of the city, which is destroying the delicate fabric of life and is thwarting all possibility for a future peace accord.
