The Evil of Political Extremism

The eulogies of hate spoken at Sunday’s funeral of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the West Bank settler who killed 48 praying Palestinians last week, are beyond contempt. Fanatics who rejoice in the slaughter of the innocent hardly speak for all West Bank settlers; they speak for only a small fraction of Israelis and an even tinier fraction of Jews worldwide. Jews and indeed decent people everywhere are deeply shamed and repulsed by both the massacre and the remarks made at Goldstein’s funeral.

The American immigrant physician was beaten to death by worshipers after he methodically fired more than 100 rounds inside a Hebron mosque.

Several hundred extremist Jews gathered Sunday in Jerusalem, many toting automatic rifles, to eulogize Goldstein as a righteous hero. “The act itself was one of greatness. It was a great act of sanctifying (God),” said a spokesman for Kach, the small extremist group of which Goldstein was a member. No, it was not. Goldstein’s action was unspeakably evil. “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail,” said another mourner at the funeral. “We are all Goldsteins!” shouted others.

What vile thoughts. Goldstein was a fanatic bent on a mission of his own making. And the fundamentalist group to which he belonged represents the views of only itself and a smattering of other hatemongers in the Middle East and elsewhere.

In an effort to preserve the fragile progress toward peace in the Mideast talks, the Israeli government, commendably, has moved quickly to isolate Kach followers. On Sunday it ordered some of the toughest measures ever imposed against militant Jews. Several leaders of the Kach movement, an offshoot of the Jewish Defense League, were ordered detained. The government also plans to disarm and restrict a number of West Bank militants.

The government and a majority of Israelis are saying with a clear voice: No, we are not all Goldsteins; the massacre was an atrocity; it is the extremists of the Middle East--Jewish as well as Arab and Palestinian extremists--who are the mortal enemies of peace.

To permit the peace process to flag now would be to permit the extremists to dictate the course of history. The determined people of goodwill in the Middle East must not allow that to happen.