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Slain Jewish Settler Is Finally Buried After Riot, Car Race and a Rabbinical Ruling January 21, 2003 By JOHN KIFNER JERUSALEM, Jan. 20 - Nathaniel Ozeri, a Jewish settler slain by Palestinian gunmen on Friday night, was finally buried early this morning, 15 hours after his followers on the far edge of the religious right turned his funeral into a riot that stunned even this normally contentious country. There were a series of struggles over where the body would be buried - including an aborted race with the body in a car toward Jerusalem. His wife and supporters hoped to display the body in front of the prime minister's office there as a protest over the killing of settlers by Palestinians. Mr. Ozeri was finally laid to rest in darkness about 3 a.m. today in Hebron's old city cemetery alongside victims of a 1929 massacre of Jews in that city. The funeral, at noon on Sunday, was preceded by attacks on Palestinian homes by settlers. The attackers broke windows with iron bars, and at one point a young mother with a baby strapped to her chest pounded a Palestinian house with a big rock. There were wild scuffles as the army and the police tried to intervene, and the crowd taunted the police, shouting insults. The eulogies at the funeral were bitter, condemning Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who was slain in 1995 by a religious extremist who was opposed to his efforts to make peace with Palestinians. Mr. Ozeri's father-in-law, Shaul Nir, demanded revenge and called the police "scum." He is a former member of the Jewish underground who was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 for killing Palestinians in Hebron. He was later pardoned along with other members of the group by President Chaim Herzog. Then Mr. Ozeri's elderly father took the microphone and asked that his son be buried in Jerusalem so his mother could easily visit the grave. Wrangling ensued. A rabbi, Dov Lior, was brought in to mediate and ruled that the burial should be in Hebron. But then, urged on by Mr. Ozeri's widow, Livnat, young settlers snatched the body from the bed of a pickup truck intending to take it to the hilltop grave they had secretly dug. Some family members were knocked over in the struggle, and the rabbi was carried to safety on the back of a bodyguard. Soldiers finally managed to block the group, and for a moment it appeared that an agreement had been reached to bury Mr. Ozeri in Hebron. But the car carrying the body suddenly veered off, speeding away. When Israeli soldiers and the police tried to restore order, the settlers left behind continued to battle them and to attack Palestinian homes and set cars on fire. After they snatched his body, Mr. Ozeri's followers raced over hills, fences and vineyards trying to bury it on the isolated hilltop where he had been killed. They struck out for Jerusalem after they were turned away from the site by soldiers. Mrs. Ozeri said later that she had wanted to put the body on display "so the whole country can see the results of the terror and what happened when the Jews gave rifles to the terrorists." As Mr. Ozeri's followers in Hebron hoisted his body, on a stretcher wrapped in a blue and white prayer shawl, they pulled back the covering so his face was visible, in the style of Palestinian funerals for what they call their martyrs. It was a clear violation of Jewish religious law and tradition, and the spectacle drew criticism today from leading rabbis. "A disgrace," said the chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yisrael Meir Law, "another bitter cup of sorrow." The chief Sephardic rabbi, Eliyahu Bakshi-Doran, called the supporters' action "very serious," adding, "If we leave the most extreme person to decide what is a good deed, what is religious law, all sorts of injustices will be done in God's name." Hebron, home to a group of militant settlers who believe that they have a mandate from God to reclaim the land they call Judea and Samaria, is always a volatile place. In the old city, an enclave of 450 religious Jews is guarded by soldiers and surrounded by 150,000 Palestinians, confined to their homes much of the time by army curfews. Nearby, 7,000 more Jewish settlers live in the sprawling settlement of Qiryat Arba. Tensions were running high even before Mr. Ozeri was killed by two Palestinian gunmen on Friday night, after he answered the door during his family's Sabbath dinner. There have been four Palestinian attacks in Hebron and nearby areas in the last two months in which 22 Israelis have been killed. On Friday, the two attackers, armed with an M-16 rifle, a revolver, grenades, a knife and an ax, were also killed. Mr. Ozeri was a well-known figure on the far right, a leader of the "hilltop youth," who have been trying to expand the settlers' presence by building outposts on isolated hills. His family of seven was the only one living on the illegal settlement known as Lot 26. He had returned home two weeks ago after serving a jail sentence for attacking a policemen during a similar disturbance at a Hebron funeral for another slain settler in July. Mr. Ozeri's followers did not get their wish. After they headed for Jerusalem, they went only as far as Bethlehem. There they got the news of a rabbinical ruling that caused them to turn back and to return the body to Hebron. "They planned to put the body on display in a political demonstration," said Naom Amon, a spokesman for the Hebron settlers, "but turned around when the rabbis ruled that you cannot bring a dead person into the Holy City without burying him or her there." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/21/international/middleeast/21MIDE.html?ex=1044140958&ei=1&en=e912238e28649231 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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