[7] The Jewish Underground developed two operational objectives: One consisted of a plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock, while the other branch concentrated on both avenging acts of Palestinian violence against settlers and of establishing a punitive deterrence.
[citation needed] Spokesmen for Gush Emunim were variously reported as reacting with comments like, "Well organized, very good work", and, "I hope that the Jews did it".
[1] On hearing the news, co-founder of Gush Emunim rabbi Haim Drukman is said to have exclaimed, citing the Song of Deborah, "Thus, may all Israel's enemies perish!
[16] One member of the group was an IDF expert in explosives who had access to sufficient ammunition and material stolen from the Israeli army to carry out the plan.
[1] Early in the morning of 27 April 1984, following a plan devised by Livni, three operatives went into East Jerusalem and fixed five powerful explosive devices to the bottoms of five Arab buses.
The bombs were timed to explode that afternoon, during Friday, one of the busiest days of the week,[22] when the buses would have been packed with Palestinian worshippers returned home from celebrating Isra and Mi'raj.
[22] It was only during the interrogations that followed that Israeli Security officers stumbled onto evidence that the cell intended to blow up the Dome of the Rock, a mission which, many observed, had it been achieved, would have risked, a catastrophe of major proportions,[22] if not a world conflagration.
[21] A week later, security forces raided the settlement of Kiryat Arba, finding a cache of stolen regional defense program weapons and explosives linked to the bomb plot.
[8][22] A string of arrests followed with police bringing in a number of settlement and political leaders, including future Knesset member Eliezer Waldman and Rabbi Moshe Levinger.
Three of the men, Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir, and Uzi Sharbav, were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the Islamic College attack and attempted assassinations.
[8] Yigal Cohen-Orgad and Rehavam Ze'evi offered references testifying to the good character of the accused, while other MKs like Meir Cohen-Avidov and Dov Shilansky were supportive from the very outset.
[1] Edward Alexander, however, reports that a Haaretz poll in June found that 60% of Israelis condemned the Underground's activities, and the culprits deserved severe punishment.
[14] The presiding judge at their trial, Shmuel Finkelstein, cited extenuating circumstances by contrasted what he regarded as premeditated Palestinian terrorism to the retaliatory acts of the Underground activists: This group of men ... is unique.
The crimes of some of the defendants lay in the fervour of their religious faith; like the rebels under Korach, each picked up his pan of incense and loaded it with idolatrous fire against God’s command.
[25] This affected the sentencing: Major Rehavam Ze'evi placed blame on the government, and stated that despair had led the terrorists, "pioneers, men of vision and faith", to take the law into their own hands.
[17] Major Rehavam Ze'evi was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in 2001,[25] while Shaul Nir was shot and critically wounded in a drive-by attack on 9 December 2015.
[30] The existence of a violent underground had, until the mass arrests, been dismissed by most Gush Emunim members as falsehood circulated by Peace Now to discredit the movement.
Though said to be not exactly repentant for his own past, he did make a public protest over the Duma arson attack, in which all but one member of a Palestinian family died when their home was fire-bombed by settlers.