Hebron's Ugly Truths

Hints of a second shooter and revelations of official laxity raise the specter of high-level resignations

Tragic but simple: that was Israel's official characterization of last month's massacre of Muslim worshippers in Hebron. The killer, a Jewish settler, was portrayed as a singular lunatic acting alone. The episode, it was said, could not have been foreseen or prevented, and Israeli security forces responded properly. But after two weeks of hearings by a state commission examining the slaughter, it does not look so elementary anymore. Baruch Goldstein, the Hebron triggerman, is no longer the sole subject of suspicion, now that witnesses say a second man may have been involved. More broadly, an entire national mind-set that enabled settlers...

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