Security forces were reported Sunday to be holding three terrorists suspected of murdering Hebrew University Professor Menahem Stern and electronics technician Eli Amsalem in Jerusalem nearly three years ago, as part of their “initiation” into the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Al Fatah wing.
Stern, one of Israel’s most distinguished academicians, was stabbed to death in broad daylight during the morning of June 22, 1989, while walking from his home in the Rehavia neighborhood to the National Library on the campus in Givat Ram. He was 64 at the time.
Amsalem, 39, was knifed to death a month later in his home in the Nahlaot neighborhood in downtown Jerusalem.
The three killers, reputed members of a Fatah cell, are also believed responsible for the murder of an Arab money-changer in the administered territories.
The suspects, whose ages range between 26 and 32, were not immediately identified. They reportedly told police they murdered Stern and Amsalem as a “test” for admission into Fatah.
Stern’s murder shocked Israel and much of the academic world. Awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in history in 1977, the Polish-born professor was an expert on Hellenistic and Roman culture and on the period of the Second Temple.
Ironically, the police at the time of the murder discounted Palestinian nationalism as a motive because Arabs rarely frequented the area of western Jerusalem where it occurred. Stern’s body was found in bushes near the Israel Museum.
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