Baruch Goldstein

Baruch Kopel Goldstein (; born Benjamin Carl Goldstein; December 9, 1956 – February 25, 1994) was an American-Israeli mass murderer, religious extremist, and physician who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an incident of Jewish terrorism. Goldstein was a supporter of the Kach, a religious Zionist party that the United States, the European Union and other countries designate as a terrorist organization.

Following the massacre, Jewish Israeli settlers were barred from entering major Arab communities in Hebron. The Israeli government also took extreme measures against Palestinians following deadly riots after the massacre, expelling them from certain streets near Jewish settlements in Hebron, such as Al-Shuhada Street, where many Palestinians had homes and businesses, and allowing access exclusively to Jewish Israelis and foreign tourists.

The international community and the Israeli government condemned the massacre. Israel arrested followers of Meir Kahane, and criminalized the Kach movement and affiliated movements as terrorist movements. At the same time, Israel forbade certain Israeli settlers from entering Palestinian towns, and demanded that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles, although they rejected a Palestinian Liberation Organization demand that all settlers in the West Bank be disarmed and that an international force be created to protect Palestinians.

Goldstein's gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. The following words are inscribed on the tomb: "He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land." In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli Army dismantled the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment. The tombstone and its epitaph, calling Goldstein a martyr with clean hands and a pure heart, was left untouched. After the flagstones around it were pried away under the eye of a military chaplain, the ground was covered with gravel. Provided by Wikipedia