When Avigdor Lieberman yesterday argued that all Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders must “disappear, go to heaven, all of them” (i.e. be assassinated) most people would have dismissed it as just the latest crackpot statement from a man who could sensibly be described as Israel’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dismissal would, however, have been premature. The Sunday Times today reports that Prime Minster Olmert has ordered his security chiefs to assassinate Hamas’ political leadership. Even more shockingly, we learn that the impetus for move came from none other than Amir Peretz, who broke down into tears when his bodyguard was injured in a Qassam attack on Sderot last Wednesday.
That, apparently, justifies the extra-judicial execution (Amnesty International’s words) of members of the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. Presumably, then, Peretz and Olmert would accept that it is perfectly legitimate for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to assassinate members of the Israeli political leadership.
The Sunday Times describes the move as a “change in tactics” but it is actually nothing of the sort. Israel regularly “liquidates” supposed militants, often killing innocent civilians (”collateral damage”) in the process. Recall, for example, July 2002, when an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-tonne bomb on a densely populated Gaza City neighbourhood in an assassination attempt on Hamas activist Salah Shehada. Shehada was killed along with seven other adults and nine children, with more than 70 people injured. Six nearby houses were also destroyed in the attack, which was described the following day by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as “one of the most successful operations”. More recently, on 6 November 2006, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed a Palestinian child and injured six others in a failed extra-judicial execution attempt. Israel justifies its actions by claiming it is in a state of war with the Palestinians and so the killing of enemy combatants is legitimate. In reality, the situation is not a war but an occupation. That doesn’t mean that Israel is not allowed to defend itself and it doesn’t mean militants in the process of attacking Israel should not be dealt with. It does mean that to have a policy of assassinating Hamas political leaders is illegal. Furthermore, by accepting Israel’s right to assassinate we are conferring upon the Israeli political and military leadership the authority to decide who is and who is not an immediate threat to Israel’s security, despite their long and bloody history of failing to make this distinction (only recently Olmert declared that 300 “terrorists” had been killed in the past three months, despite the fact that this total includes 155 people, 61 of them children, who were non-combatants). It is true that since Hamas was elected in January the IDF has largely refrained from direct attacks on its politicians. In this sense, Peretz’ and Olmert’s move is a ‘change in tactics’, but it’s hardly a revolutionary one - Israel has simply gone from destroying the government’s buildings, stealing its money and “arresting” its politicians to killing them. Anything for a return to a servile, “enforcer” Fatah government.
Article comments
1 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
UPDATE:
Sadly, today provided further evidence that the IDF is unable or unwilling to distinguish between civilians and militants and should therefore not be allowed to conduct either house demolitions or targeted assassinations.
This afternoon, the IDF launched an air-strike against a car carrying a couple of Hamas militants. The strike killed a 75 year-old man and injured eight civilians, including four children aged five, 13, 14 and 16. The two Hamas militants were also wounded. This cannot be allowed to continue.
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Jamie,
I hate to say this, but I'm not fazed at all by this news in comment #1. When you seek war and call for the extermination of a people because they are your dogs - that is what "El Yahud klabna! ItbaH el Yahud!" means - then when you get war and extermination in return, you are getting your just desserts.
It is long past the time that the Arab leadership - the PLO and the Hamas together - were executed for inciting to terror and war. If you are too stupid to see this, then for your own sake, I hope a Moslem never attacks you in Britain and leaves you severely injured, that you may continue unhindered in your stupidity.
As for the Geneva Convention and all the other bullshit you cite from the Useless Nothings in Prussian blue - flush it all down the toilet where it belongs.
3 - Jerry
"That doesn’t mean that Israel is not allowed to defend itself and it doesn’t mean militants in the process of attacking Israel should not be dealt with."
So are you saying Israel must wait until the rockets are launched before they can exercise self defense?
How many innocent Israeli citizens need to die by Qassam rockets before they respond?
Reality dictates that preemption = survival.
Destroying the masterminds behind the offensive is legitimate in this case.
4 - RJ Elliott
I weep for Israel. They have murderous enemies all around them. If they simply absorb the attacks and do their best to ignore them, they are viewed as weak and then further attacks occur. But if they respond, the international media portrays them as the bad guys.
And now Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons, and is promising a second Holocaust in the same breath as it denies the first.
Olmert is utterly useless. Israelis need to depose him, and bring in someone who is willing to do what needs to be done.
Fuck the Palestinians. They danced in the streets and handed out candy to their children immediately after 9/11. Our tax dollars at work, it would seem...
5 - Jared Wright
" Destroying the masterminds behind the offensive is legitimate in this case."--#3
I'm sure the four kids injured today, all sixteen or younger, would be flattered by your calling them masterminds. I respect Israel's ability to defend itself from those wishing to truly harm it, but I don't think it's too much to expect Israel to do a better job of isolating their targets rather than just randomly causing chaos and hoping they get the suckers somewhere in the blast.
6 - Munaeem
To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will " at the most, an act of prudence. Palestinians should accept what the international community is offering them.
7 - Jerry
Jared,
Start watching the news. Palistinian woman are now amassing as human shields at the homes of the masterminds who are targeted by Israel.
These people live by different rules and no one can win when dealing with them.
A certain (high) level of death is acceptable to their leaders and lay people to forward their devious plans, and Israel has no choice but to deliver it.
8 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Jerry: I'm saying that if Israel could that it has the will to make a distinction between civilians and combatants and to keep military actions within the law, then perhaps we could accept these often quasi-legal methods of quelling resistance in the rare occasion when Israel catches a militant on his way to deliver an attack or in the process of delivering an attack (as opposed to just being a member of a group). If someone is a member of a terrorist group and Israel has evidence they will perform an attack soon or have orchestrated an attack in the past, Israeli soldiers should arrest them and give them a fair trial.
Except we can't even trust them to do that because a) Palestinians are often extra-judicially executed in the course of arrest and b) Israel systematically tortures its prisoners and keeps them in detention for years without proper trial.
So until Israel can be trusted to abide by the law, we should not support any house demolitions or any assassinations. The first comment indicates why.
Munaeem: "To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will "
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Israel has consistently shown that it is willing to use force illegally and when unnecessary for Israeli security.
Jerry: "These people live by different rules and no one can win when dealing with them."
Yeh, 'cos it's so strange for a society that has been under violent siege for months and a military occupation for decades to rally round those who fight the occupier. That's so strange. Those Palestinians just want violence, violence, violence. Etc. etc.
"Israel has no choice but to deliver it."
You're forgetting the underlying dynamic: Israel is the occupier, the Palestinians are the occupied and the Palestinian militants are the resistance. Israel is not the victim here (although Israelis, who have had to live in fear and who have been hurt/killed by Palestinians, undoubtedly are).
9 - Munaeem
"Israel is the occupier."
History tells us that Medina was jewish settlement. It means we have to return City of Medina to Jews.
Pakistan was curved out of Hindu land. So we have to return Pakistan to the inidian hindus.
Arabs ruled 300 hundreds in spain. Muslims ruled hundu dominated subcontinent for many hundred years. No one complained.
We have to accept Israel as a historical reality.
10 - Jerry
"You're forgetting the underlying dynamic: Israel is the occupier, the Palestinians are the occupied and the Palestinian militants are the resistance".
Jamie, your forgetting that Israel has quit "occupying" Gaza and other territories, which are now used to stage attacks on her.
They are getting tired of it.
The flow of your reasoning leads one to believe that Israel has no claims to that tiny speck in the Mid East, and should be scattered (if not annihilated) to the far corners of the globe.
11 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Munaeem: "We have to accept Israel as a historical reality."
Yes, we do. We don't have to accept the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. As to the rest of your post - look, there's obviously a difference between a people residing in a land for a few hundred years a couple of thousands of years ago and Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their land in 1948, many of whom live in refugee camps to this day.
Anyway, I'm not going to have that pointless debate again. International law is clear on the matter - the West Bank and Gaza is "Occupied Palestinian Territory". Fact.
Jerry: "Jamie, your forgetting that Israel has quit "occupying" Gaza and other territories, which are now used to stage attacks on her."
That's just not true. It's a falsehood disseminated by Israeli politicians and supporters, but it bears no relation to the reality. Israel withdrew its settlers and forces but retained control of Gaza's airspace, borders, imports/exports and even the minutae of daily Gazan life. It was as if, to paraphrase Gideon Levy, the Israelis left the cage and locked the door behind them.
In any event, even if we pretend for a moment that Gaza did stop being occupied, resistance would still be justified from Gaza. Gaza and the West Bank are to be considered as one unit, so if resistance is justified in the West Bank it is also justified in Gaza. Imagine if Haifa were occupied by a foreign army - would you say that only residents of Haifa (and not, say, Tel Aviv) had a right to fight back?
"The flow of your reasoning leads one to believe that Israel has no claims to that tiny speck in the Mid East, and should be scattered (if not annihilated) to the far corners of the globe."
You're imagining things. Whether or not Israel has any claim to any of historical Palestine is indeed up for debate, but I'm not debating it here. It serves no purpose and in any event I'm using international law as my starting point. International law is clear: the West Bank and Gaza are Occupied Palestinian Territories. The occupation is illegal and the Palestinians have a right to resist.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Jamie,
I know a little bit about what being a refugee is all about. I learned it from my father z"l, who was a refugee kid in Russia-Poland during the Great War. One of the basic points I learned from him was that refusing to take in a refugee from war is nothing short of ctiminal - and this is what the Arabs have done to their own brethren who fled from the War of Independence in 1947-49.
Had they acted as brohers to their own, the Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere would have a moral point to make. They have none. They acted like pigs to their own people. Jordan is under the minority rule of Bedouin who is trying very hard to pass as a South Syrian Arab. The simple fact of the matter is that the south Syrian Arabs have a homeland - Jordan - and they need to act in concerted fashion to claim it and make it their own.
And we Jews have our homeland - Israel - from the Jordan River to the Sea.
You can cite "international law" intil you're blue in the face, and I expect you to, and bow to the idol of self-hatred until it consumes you, something I also expect you to do, but the facts on the ground indicate the truth of what I say.
As for "resistance" in Gaza, or Judea and Samaria, it is organized terror and insurrection run by criminal gangs and nothing else, and I have the balls to call it for what it is if nobody else does.
13 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
"One of the basic points I learned from him was that refusing to take in a refugee from war is nothing short of ctiminal - and this is what the Arabs have done to their own brethren who fled from the War of Independence in 1947-49."
I agree. The Palestinians have been betrayed by countries such as Jordan and Lebanon who have forced them to continue to live in camps for political purposes.
That does nothing to excuse the fact that Israel expelled them and then, more importantly, refused to allow them to return.
"You can cite "international law" intil you're blue in the face, and I expect you to, and bow to the idol of self-hatred until it consumes you, something I also expect you to do, but the facts on the ground indicate the truth of what I say."
Enough with the 'self-hated' garbage. As to international law - you're right in your expectations. Just as you must abide by the law and I must abide by the law, so must the state of Israel.
"As for "resistance" in Gaza, or Judea and Samaria, it is organized terror and insurrection run by criminal gangs and nothing else"
Yes, but terrorism is not a contradiction to resistance. It's a method, an illegitimate method, of resistance.
It's resistance nonetheless.