Assassination of Rabin, Massacre by Goldstein

I've spent many years now thinking about the death of Rabin and the massacre committed by Baruch Goldstein. I don't have the time at the moment to explain my views, nor to explain how they have evolved over the years. (This is the one issue I can think of, in which the view I held upon my aliyah is fundamentally different than the view I hold now.) Suffice it to say that originally, my views were like those of nearly everyone else, but that now, my views are like those of Moshe Feiglin in Where There are No Men. As I learned more about the politics of Israel over the past 3+ years, my views on Rabin and Goldstein started to move further and further to the right, until, by the time I read Feiglin's book about 3 months ago, my views were already almost completely Feiglin-ish, and his view only served to finalize and crystallize the understanding I had myself been developing on my own.

I saw that the same view held by me and Feiglin is expressed very succinctly and accurately in Rabbi Emanuel Rackman's One Man's Judaism, in one of the new appendices added to the recent 2004 edition, p. 400:

Moreover, there was evidence that Dr. Goldstein overreacted when he heard the threat of a pogrom by the Muslims against the Jews of Hebron after their worship service. And if this was the fact, Dr. Goldstein was not a villain but a martyred hero. Rabin's assassin could not possibly be hailed as a hero when even Rabin's opponents knew that his death would not change the peace or slow it up but rather accelerate it. It was the defeat of Peres that put the brake on the ruling parties, and the assassination was not even a contributing factor.

Update: I just found the following interesting passage here. The passage is interesting to me because it relates Rabbis Kahane and Rackman to each other.:

In his biography of Kahane, False Prophet, Robert Friedman showed that Kahane had called for "liquidation" not only of Arabs, but also of Jews with whom he disagreed. He pointed out that Kahane raised as much as $500,000 a year from American Jews. In his book, he reports that "Parlor meetings arranged by Emanuel Rackman, the rabbi of the prestigious Fifth Avenue Synagogue and now dean of Bar Ilan University in Israel, earned Kahane up to $50,000 for an afternoon talk." Meir Kahane was not a "marginal" figure as many Jewish leaders said he was. He was a popular Jewish icon.

Now, the website is a collection of nonsensical ignorant drivel from white supremacists, so I'd be reluctant to rely on them, but the passage seems consistent with everything else I know. We've seen Rabbi Rackman's views on Goldstein and Rabin, and so it isn't hard to imagine that he'd have supported Rabbi Kahane. As for Rabbi Kahane's alleged widespread support in America, one of my friends in America, a man who followed Rabbi Kahane's speaking arrangements wherever they went, that when Rabbi Kahane spoke in Sha'arei Tefillah, a popular Conservative synagogue in White Oak, Maryland, Rabbi Kahane drew such an audience that they had to open up their expanded High Holyday seating. Rabbi Kahane was certainly no marginal figure. So even though the above passage is from a rabid pack of uninformed idiots (one poster, for example, claims that in the Six-Day War, Israel fought a rag-tag group of impoverished villagers, even though in reality, Israel fought a trained conventional Egyptian army armed with quite modern Soviet weaponry), it seems to check out. That said, I have no idea what to make of the "liquidation" claim; Rabbi Kahane explicitly and repeatedly stated in clear and certain terms that he opposed only terrorists, and not Arabs per se, and that he supported the right of peaceful law-abiding Arabs to reside in Israel. How one can square this with a supposed attempt by Rabbi Kahane to "liquidate" the Arabs is beyond me.

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Update: In response to "rogueregime" in the comments, let me explain myself:

When I first came to Israel, all I had was my support for the Zionist enterprise in general (which I still possess) and my belief that Judaism values all of humanity in general (which I still believe). In other words, I generally believed that G-d was returning the Jews to Israel, and that all of humanity and human knowledge were valuable and lovely. On my blog, I often write about these topics, and some readers have said that my gathering of sources on appreciation and love for gentiles in Jewish sources is some of the most comprehensive work they've seen on the subject.

Suffice it to say, then, the whole Baruch Goldstein massacre was wrenching to every fiber of my being. When on TV I'd see Baruch Marzel celebrating Goldstein, I could not understand how such horrific people could exist on earth. It absolutely disgusted me. It was a perversion of Judaism; it was a betrayal of basic humanity.

But it is only when you come to Israel and see things firsthand that you must take a closer look, and realize things are not so simple. My basic core beliefs have barely changed, but my greater knowledge of the facts on the ground in Israel have made all the difference.

One comes to Israel and realizes that the Israeli Left is taking Israel to hell in a handbasket, and doing nothing at all whatsoever to stop terrorism. The Left in fact hands land and AK-47s to terrorists, almost in reward for their acts of murder.

So the first thing that occurred to me was: if the Israeli army and government do nothing at all to stop terrorism, then what else are people like Goldstein supposed to do? If they legitimately and sincerely want to stop terrorism - with no racism at all in their hearts, but only hatred of terrorism - what do I expect them to do? The IDF is doing nothing at all, and Goldstein has no army of his own to calmly and properly conduct investigations and searches.

My thinking on Rabin matured as well. I realized that the Oslo Accords did nothing but to endanger innocent human life, by giving land to unrepentant terrorists who openly and unabashedly admitted to intention to commit terrorism in the future. In Israel, Oslo is known as "when peace broke out". The very day of Oslo, my rabbi was driving from Jerusalem to his home in Beit El (in the West Bank). On the way, the IDF stopped him and diverted him to a side-road. My rabbi asked why he couldn't take the main road anymore to Beit El. Remember, this is the very day Oslo occurred. The IDF told my rabbi that the main road was no longer safe to drive on, because of Oslo. The very day of Oslo, the IDF already recognized that Oslo compromised the safety of innocent human life. My rabbi added that he had been a kashrut supervisor (mashgiah) in an Arab factory, but that Oslo made it too dangerous for him to travel to the factory anymore, and thus, the Arab factory's kashrut certification lapsed. Because of Oslo, this personal (and potentially peace-inspiring) interaction between Arabs and Jews ceased.

So I realized that with the IDF doing nothing to ensure peace and safety, vigilantes had nothing else to do but to go solo. This still troubled me, and gave me tremendous discomfort. I had an inestimable amount of cognitive dissonance. The idea of individual vigilantes taking on the IDF's job troubled me terribly, but I had to admit that I didn't have a better idea. If only the IDF would do its job, then Goldstein wouldn't have to...

As regards Oslo, I had to admit: given the objective and indisputable fact that Oslo led directly to the loss of innocent human life, what else was Rabin but a murderer? If I'd assassinate a common street murderer, why should a political figure be any different? If Rabin were faceless anonymous man who murdered before my eyes, I'd surely murder him in return. Why should a political figure be any different?

Back to Goldstein: in fact, the muezzins (Muslim prayer callers) in Hebron had for days been yelling "Itbah al yahud" ("Slaughter on the Jews!"). Days before the Baruch Goldstein massacre, the IDF had told Goldstein (who was an IDF physician) to stockpile medical supplies, in expectation of an Arab massacre. Goldstein asked the IDF why they wouldn't stop the massacre in advance, and the IDF replied that Oslo tied their hands. Jewish lives were going to be sacrificed on the altar of Oslo. (Related in Moshe Feiglin, Where There are No Men.)

So thanks to Oslo, Goldstein was faced with the very real prospect of an Arab massacre of Jews, both by report of the IDF and of the muezzins in Hebron. Goldstein perhaps overreacted. But what else should he have done? The IDF told him that they'd do nothing to stop terrorism. Goldstein had no choice but to stand by silently, or to take matters into his own hands.

As for Rabin, I might add that by his own admission, he was directly responsible for the murder of all those aboard the Altalena. As related by Moshe Feiglin, Rabin proudly admitted that he was responsible for the Haganah's murder of those aboard the Altalena, because it was carrying weapons for the rival Irgun group. So Rabin was a common petty murderer, by his own explicit and proud admission. The only argument against assassinating him, then, is that practically, it did no good. Murdering him only made him a martyr and strengthened his cause. But were it not for this pragmatic consideration...

Rabin's Oslo was directly responsible for Goldstein's having to do what he did. In fact, we could say that Rabin is guilty of the deaths Goldstein caused. If it hadn't been for Oslo, then the IDF, not Goldstein, would have killed the terrorists. And obviously, if the IDF were to do the action instead, it'd have been able to investigate who to kill and how, how to avoid the deaths of innocent civilians, etc. Goldstein lacked an army and an investigative apparatus, so all he could do is "spray and pray" with an automatic rifle; he could not investigate individual targets or conduct searches of homes for weapons caches, etc. Had the IDF done its job, many innocent Arab lives might have been spared. So if Goldstein did anything wrong, the blame falls on Rabin who tied the IDF's hands, not Goldstein.

All this still troubles me. It sickens me to have to justify assassinations and massacres. I'm naturally a peaceful person; I used to wrestle, but I had to stop because even though I was skilled enough at it, I simply didn't have the heart for it, to hit another person. So for me to support Goldstein not only goes against what I'd like to believe, but it even goes against my basic personality. I'm a born pacifist. Golda Meir said, "We can perhaps forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for forcing us to kill your children". For myself, I'd say, "I can perhaps forgive you for killing us, but I cannot forgive you for forcing me to justify Goldstein." I shouldn't have to wonder whether Goldstein was justified. It should be the easiest thing in the world for me to decry a man walking into a place of worship and shooting unarmed men. I shouldn't have to wonder whether that is justified. But the Arabs have stolen that innocence from me. The Arabs have forced me to side with Goldstein, and for that, I cannot forgive them.

(Do not misunderstand me. I'm not saying I would repeat any of these actions (G-d forbid), whether Amir's or Goldstein's. One can search everything I've ever written, and one could even search everything and I've ever said, and I guarantee, one will not hear a single utterance by me of advocacy to commit a second Goldstein massacre in another mosque, or advocacy to assassinate Livni or Olmert or Sharon or Netanyahu. Others - usually Israeli Leftists, in fact - have advocated the assassination of Israeli leaders (see Feiglin, Where There are No Men), but so far as I know (Feiglin, ibid.), no prominent right-wing Israelis, by contrast with the Left, have advocated violence against Israeli political figures, and neither will I. Similarly, while Baruch Marzel will celebrate Goldstein, I've never seen him advocate a repetition; I've only seen him stage protest marches through Arab villages. By contrast, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (of the Left) would refer to IDF soldiers as "Judeo-Nazis", and unless he was being hyperbolic with extremely poor taste, I can only assume that he was subtly hinting for IDF soldiers to be treated as Nazis should be. But as against this Leftist advocacy (or veiled suggestion) of violence, no one on the right, as far as I know, advocates a second Amir or Goldstein. Thank G-d.)

Update: "Ar." below in the comments informed me that Leibowitz was known to be flamboyant and bombastic, and use extreme language just to rile people up and push their buttons. If so, then Leibowitz's "Judeo-Nazi" slur would not have been an incitement to murder. Still, I wonder: if Leibowitz's language can be brushed off as hyperbolic, then perhaps a rightists's language of incitement (say, a call to murder Arabs) can also be viewed as potentially hyperbolic? What's good for the goose is good for the gander; if a leftist's extreme language is brushed off as hyperbolic and not meant seriously, then why not extend the same courtesy to the right?