Security officials are concerned that the grave of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish settler who gunned down Muslim worshipers in Hebron, is becoming a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists.
“I am afraid lunatics will draw the power from there to carry out another criminal act,” police Cmdr. Alik Ron told the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot.
The Brooklyn-born Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshipers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in February 1994, killing 29 people before he was beaten to death by survivors of the attack.
He was buried on the outskirts of Kiryat Arba, the settlement adjacent to Hebron.
The landscaped area around the grave prompted a stormy debate in the Knesset Interior Committee last week, when Chairman Salah Tareef of the Labor Party demanded that it be dismantled.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza have contacted Israeli security officials to explore the possibility of moving Goldstein’s grave to a site inside Israel, according to Israel Radio.
The main reason for not moving the grave, council leaders were quoted as saying, was opposition by the outlawed, anti-Arab Kach group.
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