Wednesday Special: 15th anniversary of the Hebron massacre
In this special, we look at the Israeli settler movement, and some of its more extreme elements. February 25th, 2009 marks the 15th anniversary of the Hebron massacre, in which 29 Palestinians praying in a mosque were gunned down by an Israeli settler named Baruch Goldstein, who was a follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane. That massacre, which took place soon after the Oslo peace accords, which were supposed to bring peace, shattered the possibility of the peace process actually working. Soon after the Hebron massacre, the first Palestinian suicide bomber entered Israel to kill Israeli civilians.
And since that 1994 attack, the Israeli expansion of settlements in the West Bank increased exponentially, with over 300,000 Israelis now living in new developments that the indigenous Palestinian population whose land was expropriated to build them.
What role has the Israeli settler movement had on setting Israeli policy? How has that affected the possibility of peace in the region?
Now, as the Israeli public has voted in the most extreme right government in decades, we take this time to look at some of the background, history and ideologies that have brought Israel to this place.
Schedule:
12:00 - 12:30 Nora Barrows-Friedman of Flashpoints presents a program she produced in a visit to Hebron in 2007.
12:30 Cris Andrae hosts - description of brief history, then eyewitness accounts of the Hebron massacre.
1:00 Jennifer Loewenstein on Israeli elections and the right-wing movement.
1:30 Lecture by Mark Rosenblum, of Americans for Peace Now, speaking in Portland in January. He is introduced by Rabbi Joey Wolf.
2:30 Discussion with Tom Nelson on the impact of Kahane's movement in Palestine today.
3:00 Interview with local Jewish peace activist Jacob Rosenblum
3:30 Ibdaa radio - tour of Hebron, Nora Barrows-Friedman with a 'Postcard from Palestine' - recorded in Hebron in 2005.
4:00 - 4:15 Democracy Now interviews Avraham Berg
4:15 - 5:00 Per Fagering interviews Lenny Brenner on Kach, Kahane and an analysis of the far-right in the Zionist movement.