Israeli Guards Were Not at Posts when Goldstein Opened Fire, IDF Admits

The terrorist attack at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron might have been prevented had Israeli security guards been at their posts, the Israel Defense Force admitted in testimony before the state commission of inquiry investigating the incident.

But Maj. Gen. Danny Yatom, commander for the West Bank, said that while lax security made the killings at the shrine possible, a similar attack elsewhere could not have been averted.

“A crazy murderer acting alone who decides and is determined to carry out an attack” cannot be stopped, Yatom said.

“There are many opportunities every day to kill Arabs,” said Yatom.

Yatom was testifying Tuesday at the opening of the hearings conducted at the Supreme Court by the five-member commission.

He said that two IDF soldiers and three border policemen were not at their posts when Baruch Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born settler from neighboring Kiryat Arba, opened fire and killed Palestinians at prayer.

IDF investigators now put the number of fatalities at 29. An additional three Palestinians may have been trampled by worshippers fleeing the attack.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar, who heads the panel, asked Yatom if the massacre could have been prevented had the posts been properly manned.

The head of the central command replied, “To the best of my knowledge, yes.”

In response to questions, Yatom also made it clear the military had no intelligence that warned of such a violent attack by a Jewish settler. He said the military had been alert to disturbances from the settlers, but not to terrorism.

IDF preparedness overall focused on Arab terrorism against Jews and not the reverse, he said.

The commission has far-reaching legal powers to investigate what happened, to draw conclusions and make recommendations.

It can subpoena witnesses and documents, call on the police to detain people to get them to testify and levy punishment for perjury.

Its power to compel witnesses to testify is especially important against the background of threats by Hamas against Palestinian witnesses not to testify.

Analysts assessing the possible impact of such an inquiry point to two precedents.

In 1973 a state commission investigating the Yom Kippur War found the military at fault for being taken by surprise by Syrian and Egyptian attacks, while absolving the political establishment.

But a 1982 state commission investigating the killing by Christian militiamen of hundreds of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in southern Lebanon implicated politicians and forced the resignation of then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.

In effect, officials were blamed for not foreseeing the massacre.

There has been some speculation that if the principle of indirect responsibility is applied this time, it could bring down the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.