Month after month the name Hebron was the byword for a seemingly unsolvable diplomatic dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hebron: the last major Palestinian city under complete Israeli occupation, a status that was originally supposed to end last March, if only the two sides could agree on the terms for self-rule. Last week, just when it looked as if they might, the name Hebron reclaimed its place as shorthand for bloodlust and mayhem.
Noam Friedman, 22, had a history of mental disorders and a record of threatening to murder Arabs, but he nonetheless somehow wound up in the Israeli...