                                                           B"sd

                      A Voice from Hebron
                     by Gary M. Cooperberg
                    How does one make Peace
                          With Murder?
                        August 30, 1998
                                
     In view of recent rumors blowing through our various and questionable media, as well as
recent events, my nose is twitching and I think I smell a rat.  It has been reported that Prime
Minster Netanyahu has agreed to drop his demand that the PLO covenant be revoked officially
before he will agree to any further withdrawals.  Since that report the Prime Minister has
vehemently denied any such agreement.   Add to this that Minister of Internal Security, Kahalani,
has stated his opinion that the next withdrawal will take place within weeks, and the worry
increases.

     Prime Minster Netanyahu has declared that he fully intends to turn the caravan settlement
of Tel Romeida in Hebron into a permanent community and will begin building permanent
dwellings there immediately.   Clearly leaders of the settlement movement are overjoyed.  The
YESHA council, in an apparent effort to ingratiate itself in government circles,  has strongly
condemned Baruch Marzel for his scathing verbal attack against the President, going so far as to
suggest he be expelled from Hebron!

     The Jewish Community of Hebron made it clear to the Prime Minister and his cabinet,
prior to the decision to give away 80% of Hebron to Arafat, that it would be impossible to
prevent and respond to attacks upon Jews if the PLO was given such a convenient safe-haven so
close to their victims.  Clearly this last bold murder, in which an elderly rabbi was attacked in his
own bedroom, dramatically illustrates the accuracy of the warning made prior to the decision to
trust our security to Jabril Rajoub.

     The fact that Netanyahu has decided to invest ten million shekels in Tel Romeida has me
worried.  Is this gesture a sincere attempt to embrace the philosophy of those who would answer
terror by building new settlements?  If it is, this represents a departure from past actions of this
government in response to so many other murders of innocent Jews.  Given the above news
reports I feel that it has a more ominous meaning.  I am afraid that Netanyahu has decided to
make a strategic move to earn him the support of the settlement movement prior to selling us out
in the next redeployment.  As he kisses good-by 13% of our homeland, he will point to the tiny
Jewish homestead on tel Romeida and demand appreciation instead of condemnation.

     At a time when people are being murdered and terrorized and our government is being
threatened by the United States to give away more of our homeland to Arafat, Netanyahu still
faces tremendous internal strife with the left angry that he is not giving our country away fast
enough, while the right is angry that he has not stopped Oslo.  So now, while emotions are high in
reaction to the last murder, our prime minister has brilliantly decided to harness the present
emotional atmosphere to his best interest.  He made a personal visit to Hebron to console the
widow and to announce his staunch support of a permanent Jewish presence in Hebron  It seems
that during this visit the powers that be were able to muzzle Baruch Marzel.  Surely Marzal would
have told our prime minister the same thing that he told Weitzman.  It is pure chutzpa for him to
come and console the family of victims of Arab terror when it was he who was responsible for
making this dastardly deed possible.  Weitzman, along with Netanyahu and his government all
have blood on their hands for this and other murders of Jews.  They shook hands with the leader
of the terrorists and they agreed to continue an evil agreement to surrender to our enemies. 

     The response to the murder of Jews should not be merely to build new settlements or
strengthen the existing ones.  The only answer is to remove the enemies among us.  Mrs. Ra'anan,
the Rabbi's widow, stated that this murderer was a professional.  He exercised his murderous
deed with speed and expertise.  He did not have far to run in order to escape, nor will it be hard
for him and many others like him to return to murder more Jews.  The answer is not to build
cages for Jews, rather to rid ourselves of the predators.

     And now, when a Jew is imprisoned for shooting at his attackers after being stoned on the
road between Hebron and Jerusalem, and when the GSS is alleging that Jews are planning to
assassinate Mordechai and thus they justify the arrest of alleged "Jewish extremists", we can only
assume that all of this is merely a charade to deflect attention from the evil plans of our
government to continue our surrender to the PLO.  

     The very end of next week's Torah portion of Ki Tetze is the mitzvah to blot out the
memory of Amalek.  I realize that many caution that we cannot really know who is a descendant
of Amalek today.  Yet the old saying "If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck . . ." certainly
applies to the PLO today.  Arafat and his ilk make little effort to disguise their intentions.  It is we
who prefer not to face reality and to dream about a non existent "peace effort".  Out of the office
of our Prime Minister come daily reports of countless violations of the Oslo agreements by the
PLO murderers.  Yet still the negotiations continue.  It is the obligation of any self-respecting
Jewish government to immediately declare the Oslo agreement null and void and to take steps to
remove our enemies from all Jewish lands.  This is not a political position.  It is the only sensible
path to take for our physical survival.  Not to do so is to aid and abet our enemies in their goal to
destroy us.  It is unthinkable that any Jewish government would willingly take such a path as they
have all taken.
  
     Rabbi Ra'anan, of blessed memory, was murdered because he was a Jew who chose to live
in Hebron where Arafat feels Jews should not be allowed to live.  To act as if we are living under
foreign rule and merely build stronger homes does not honor the Rabbi's memory.  Let this
horrible murder serve as proof that we do not have peace partners.  We came to live in peace with
our Arab neighbors and, time and again, we have been rewarded with murder.  One does not need
to be a genius to see that we cannot live with such people.  The time is long overdue to remove
our enemies from our midst rather than declare that we have no choice but to live with them.  



