The massacre of Hebron easily confirmed amās' view of the Jews. If Baruch indeed acted on his personal account, the ideology behind the crime was shared by a small group of Israeli extremists organised in the Kach-movement of the late Rabbi Me'ir Kahane, the Kahane chai (Kahane lives) and the settler's movement Gush Emunim. At Baruch's funeral, his deed was praised as a ªselfless actº that had been committed in the interest of the entire Jewish people.6 In his settlement he was partly praised as a ªmartyrº and a ªheroº. Commentaries of extremist rabbis who claimed that ªa Jew who kills a non-Jew is exempt from human judgement and has not violated the prohibition of murderº 7 or that ªby fighting the Arabs, Israel carries out its divine mission to serve as the heart of the worldº 8 only fueled the Islamists' belief in the corrupt and inhuman character of the Jews. This extremist school of thought within Israeli society in fact confirmed the image of the treacherous Jew full of hatred directed against Muslims according to the ancient Islamic traditions. Sheikh Tamimi, deputy president of the Association of the Religious Sages in Palestine close to amās, made the link between both ages by denouncing the Israelis as

ªmurderers of our Prophets and messengers whose hands are soaked with the blood of our best martyrsº. 9 amās did not want to distinguish between these groups and the majority of the Israelis and their government; partly because there are links from the political establishment to these extremists; but primarily because the Islamists believed that Israel was a religious state ruled by religious people. Therefore they could easily believe that the above-mentioned views of certain extremist rabbis are representative of the attitude of Israeli society towards the Palestinians and they judged the events as a ªconfirmati on of the impossibility of coexistence between the Palestinian and the Zionist peopleº. 10

Putting the massacre in the political context, the killing was seen as a ªnew proof for the falseness (¼) of the Oslo and Cairo agreementsº. 11 Since it occured only little time after the ªtreacherous Cairo agreement about security questionsº it should ªopen the eyes about the idea of a peace with the enemyº. 12 The occupation was described as an ªevil disease like cancerº for which there was only one remedy: ª exterminationº (isti` āl).13