It was not enough that Israeli soldiers within the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque allowed Goldstein -- armed with a Galil rifle and other weapons -- access to the mosque, but they opened fire on worshippers as they tried to flee the scene. Israeli soldiers killed 24 more and injured others.
Goldstein was a member of the Jewish Defence League (JDL), a racist party of Jewish extremists founded by Meir Kahane. The Temple Mount Faithful, like other such extremists groups, consider Goldstein a hero. Like Glick, Goldstein was also American, and lived in an illegal al-Khalil settlement.
While Goldstein's mass murder was condemned by many, including many Israelis, there is no denial that Jewish extremists, who are mostly populating the illegal settlements of the West Bank and Jerusalem, are part of a larger Israeli government plan aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
While Israeli bulldozers dig into Palestinian land during the day, leveling mounds of ground and destroying olive groves for settlement expansion, heavy machinery burrows beneath the Old City of al-Quds -- Jerusalem -- at night. The Israelis are looking for evidence of what they believe to be ancient Jewish temples, presumably destroyed in 586BC and 70AD.
To fulfill the "prophecy," Jewish extremists believe that a third temple must be built. But of course, there is the inconvenient fact that on that particular spot exists one of Islam's holiest sites: The Noble Sanctuary. It has been an exclusively Muslim prayer site for the last 1,300 years.
The combination of right-wing politicians allied with religious zealots is now defining the Israeli attitude towards Palestinians, particularly in Jerusalem. They are eyeing al-Aqsa for annexation, the same way the Israeli government is laboring to permanently annex large swathes of the occupied West Bank.
In fact, last February, the Israeli Knesset chose the 20th anniversary of the Goldstein massacre of Palestinians in al-Khalil, to begin a debate concerning the status of the al-Aqsa compound. Powerful right-wingers want the government to enforce its "sovereignty" over the Muslim site, which is administered by Jordan per the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 1994. Israeli MP, Moshe Feiglin, is the man behind the move, but he is not alone.
Feiglin is a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, and has strong backing within the party, the government and the Knesset. His supporters include Yehuda Glick, the American-born fanatic.
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