Note: According to Israeli officials and media reports, the now deceased Abu Jihad helped plan this and other attacks in which numerous Israelis and Americans were killed, including:
* The March 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, in which 38 people were murdered, including Gail Rubin, the niece of United States Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT).
* The Munich Olympics massacre in September 1972, in which 11 Israeli athletes --including American-Israeli citizen David Berger (of Cleveland)-- and a German policeman were murdered.
By William Claiborne
Hebron,
Occupied West Bank
-- The
violent world of Eli Hazeev stretched from the jungles of Vietnam to the
motorcycle gang of Washington, D.C.; to the West Bank of the Jordan River; and
ended May 2 in a volley of Arab machine gun fire in this ancient city of the
patriarchs -- just as he told friends he wished it to end.
When
he went to Vietnam
where he was badly wounded, he was James Eli Mahon Jr. When he was arrested in
the shotgun slaying of a fellow member of a Washington motorcycle gang -- a
charge that was later dropped -- he was known as "Crazy Jim".
When he arrived in Israel seven years ago, he called himself Eli Hazeev -- a combination of his own middle name and a common Hebrew surname meaning "The Wolf".
Hazeev was born a Christian, but he embraced Judaism with a fervor rivaled only by his passion to be a fighting man. He combined his two obsessions to create for himself a troubled odyssey that took him through the armies of two countries, half a dozen Israeli jails, the shrill life of an extreme ultra nationalist, and finally to a grave in the old Jewish cemetery in this tense Arab city.
Pasted to the door of Hazeev's walk-up apartment in Kryat Arba, the controversial Jewish settlement near Hebron, are two brightly colored signs, one an army issue placard warning "frontier ahead"; the other bearing the slogan of the extremist Jewish Defense League, "Never Again".
The signs are a microcosm of Hazeev's life from his birth 32 years ago in New York until his death in a narrow Hebron street May 2, one of six Jewish victims of the worst Arab attack on Jews since Israel occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River in 1967.
In his turbulent life, Hazeev was a sniper in the U.S. and Israeli armies; was arrested in connection with a shadowy plot to assassinate a Palestine Liberation Organization official abroad; served eight months in jail for terrorizing Arabs; and, more recently, was the object of a vast air search while hiking in the Judean desert with two girls.
He became something of a celebrity to Israelis because of extremist adventures that often put his name in the newspapers. He was secretly admired by mystics who believe the Jews have a right to all the land that in Biblical times was Palestine, including the present West Bank.
In Vietnam, Hazeev boasted he was "the point man on the squads that went into underground tunnels looking for the Viet Cong," said one former Virginia neighbor. He said he liked going one-on one with Charlie (Viet Cong soldiers).
"He liked to go to war. The idea of violence and weapons appealed to him. One day in his backyard he suddenly started spraying the leaves as if he had a machine gun in his hands. “Once he got to a war I don't think it mattered who was on the other side,” the Virginia neighbor said.
He was wounded four times, but "every time he got shot he volunteered to go back, "another neighbor said.
For Hazeev, the fighting spirit came out early, on U.S. military bases where his father, retired Air Force Col. James Eli Mahon served. Mahon who now lives in Alexandria, Va., came here for the burial of his son but went into seclusion Thursday and could not be reached.
Hazeev, born Oct. 19, 1947, was a slender, straw-haired youth remembered as liking guns and motorcycles. An Alexandria neighbor, Jim Stattler recalls his as "having both feet on the ground. If it hadn't been for Vietnam he would have been an intellectual".
He attended the now defunct Edwards Military Institute in Salemburg, N.C. before enrolling for one summer school semester at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1968, the university records show.
His stated field was pre-med, but he dropped out before completing the course, as school source said.
After Vietnam, Hazeev -- then still Mahon -- was arrested for allegedly shot gunning to death in self-defense a fellow member of the Vipers motorcycle gang, Washington police reported.
Mahon was first charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was apparently reduced to possession of a prohibited weapon and then dropped on Dec. 15, 1970 according to court records.
Vietnam had done something to Hazeev. Friends said he served two tours with a sniper unit in the 101st Airborne Division and sustained serious wounds. A thumb was blown off. He had scars from napalm burns and a bullet punctured his lung and nearly killed him. His teeth were shattered by a grenade.
He felt discouraged by the war itself, his roommates said. He believed the communists should be stopped, but felt this was the wrong place. He felt he was fighting for a good cause, but under the wrong circumstances said another roommate, Baruch Adler, Jehoshua's brother.
Hazeev's religion was deeply felt, according to his friends, and its roots seemed to lie in his frustrations from the war.
"He felt he had to find some true ideals. He said he was always interested in Jewish history, in our wars, in terrorism. He was overcome emotionally by the 1973 Yom Kippur war and his fighting instinct came out again," Jehoshua Adler said.
In early 1974, Hazeev obtained a U.S. passport under his Hebrew name, came to Israel and converted to Judaism almost immediately attempting to join the Israeli army.
Hundreds of American veterans have done the same thing when war has threatened Israel, but virtually all of them have been Jewish and their identity with the struggling Jewish homeland has been lifelong. But Hazeev could scarcely have been distinguished from the rest.
A friend from Hazeev's days in an intensive Hebrew language course recalled, "He was a fierce Jewish fighter, with the old time vision of what it's like to be Jewish. He was fearless, and fierce looking."
After his discharge and a broken marriage to an Israeli, things began to go sour for Hazeev.
A year ago, he was arrested in Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and accused of planning a trip to the United States to assassinate PLO official who was touring college campuses in Hazeev's luggage was a disguise, including an Arab headdress -- his roommates said Hazeev told them.
"He was on his way to do it. He was going to get the weapon in the States, and I personally think it would have been a great thing," said Jehoshua Adler, who is 21 and an avowed zealot. Like Hazeev, the Adler brothers are ex-Americans and followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane's extremist Jewish Defense League.
After a month in jail, Hazeev was released without trial and he moved to Kiryat Arba whose 4,000 residents include many members of the ultra nationalist settlement movement, the Gush Emunim.
Earlier this year, Hazeev was arrested in connection with a window-smashing spree in Halhoul in the West Bank.
Last month he and two girls were reported lost in the desert, but when a massive air search found them, Hazeev said he was not in danger and he offered to re-enlist in the army at half-pay to cover the expense of the search.
On May 2, Hazeev began his day as usual with 5 a.m. prayers. That evening, he walked with a group of settlers to the tomb of the patriarchs. From there, they walked to the former Jewish Hadassah clinic to visit settlers who have been conducting a sit-in for a year.
As they approached the Hadassah building, they were caught in a crossfire from Arab gunmen, and grenades exploded. Friends say Hazeev frantically tried to unsling his M-16 rifle, and lunged toward one of the gunmen before falling in a pool of blood.
Eli Hazeev wanted to die fighting, his friends said.
"He said it would be a disgrace to die of cancer, and that he wanted to die with his gun blazing. He couldn’t get the gun ready, but he died fighting." said Jehoshua Adler.
==================
Christian Science Monitor Article May 1980
Christian Science Monitor Commentary May 1980
Letter from reader of Washington Report of Middle East affairs September 1997
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