The Jewish Underground was a activist vigilante group formed in the early 1980s out of militants in the Gush Emunim movement, and consisted at its height of 25-27 militants,[7] the majority holding key positions in Gush Emunim and settler organizations.[1] Three men created the cell, Menachem Livni, Yehoshua Ben-Shoshan, and Yehuda Etzion,[8] and were soon joined by Yitzhak Ganiram (“Akale”), Shaul Nir, his brother Barak Nir and Uzi(ahu) Shar(a)baf (Sharback),[9] rabbi Moshe Levinger’s son-in-law.[10] Menachem Livni, commander of a reserve battalion of combat engineers,[3] had moved to the Jewish settlement in Hebron in 1970 and in 1977 had been elected chairman of the Kiryat Arba Council. [11] Yehuda Etzion, a co-founder of the Ofra settlement,[11] had been student of two rabbis, Zvi Yehuda Kook and Yehuda Amital, but was deeply influenced by the writings of Shabtai Ben-Dov,[8] and was dedicated to organizing the destruction of the Dome of the Rock mosque whilst Livni, a student of Moshe Levinger from Kiryat Arba, was opposed to an attack on the Haram al Sharif and was primarily concerned with mounting actions against Arabs in the Palestinian territories.[5]