The murder of a yeshiva student in Hebron last Thursday has spurred demands by nationalist and religious elements that the government establish a strong Jewish presence in that West Bank Arab town where there has been no Jewish community since the Arab uprising in 1929.
The Cabinet will discuss the issue at its regular session next Sunday. Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly has been urging his colleagues to support decisive action. Others, including Interior Minister Yosef Burg and Education Minister Zevulun Hammer, both leaders of the National Religious Party, are calling for “a Zionist response” to the murder. They are also calling for the expansion of Kiryat Arba, the Gush Emunim stronghold adjacent to Hebron where the murder victim, 23-year-old Yehoshua Sloma, had lived.
Sloma’s funeral in Jerusalem yesterday, attended by more than 2000 mourners, was the occasion for political demands by Kiryat Arba residents and religious leaders, including Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren. They want the government to permit Jews to take over homes and public buildings that had been owned by Jews in Hebron before they were massacred or fled more than 50 years ago.
Kiryat Arba Leader Rabbi Moshe Levinger demanded in his eulogy of Sloma that the government take over “all our stolen places and all the places where Jews were killed.” He also demanded that “the brazen and evil Arab mayors be put in their place. ” Goren, in a tearful eulogy of the slain student, declared that he had not died in vain “There is no force on earth that can prevent us from settling throughout our land, “he said.
Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, head of the Kiryat Arab yeshiva, called on the government to “replace the nests of murderers” in Hebron with “Jewish life.” Another local leader, attorney Elyakim Haetzni, repeated the long standing demand by Kiryat Arab residents that their town be expanded by seizing 5000 dunams of Arab owned land that surrounds it. Meanwhile, the curfew in Hebron continued for the fifth day. Residents were allowed to leave their homes briefly at noon to shop for food.
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