http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=680428&contrassID=2
Kofi, Spielberg, and what's wrong with assassinations
By Bradley Burston
Wednesday, 8 February (48 days to election day)
Kofi Annan knows what's wrong with Israeli
assassinations of Palestinian gunmen.
"The Secretary-General has noted with
concern that in recent days Israel has
conducted several targeted killings in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip,"
Annan's office said in a
statement released on Tuesday.
"While recognizing Israel's
right to defend its citizens,
targeted killings place innocent
bystanders at grave risk and amount
to executions without trial."
Steven Spielberg knows whats
wrong with assassinations.
While believing that the
prime minister of Israel was
"right in principle" in punishing
terrorists for despicable acts,
Spielberg told Der Spiegel in a
recent interview:
"A campaign of vengeance,
even though it may contribute
towards deterrence and preventing terror,
can also have unintended consequences.
It can change people,
burden them, brutalize them,
lead to their ethical decline."
Even the IDF knows what's wrong with assassinations.
"The intent of the heavy hand is to
deter the terrorist organizations,"
military sources told Haaretz this week.
But they added that "no one is deluding himself"
into thinking that the assassinations will bring
about a total cessation of Qassam attacks,
such as the weekend attack seriously
wounded a seven-month old baby in a
Negev neighborhood which housed Gush
Katif evacuee families.
The only thing that may be
right about assassinations is
the possibility that they may work.
For years,
Israel avoided the killings as a formal policy,
in part because of negative diplomatic fallout
over the post-Munich Olympics campaign of
assassinations against PLO terrorists.
Much later,
there were second thoughts
following the assassination
of Hamas suicide bomb
mastermind Yihye Ayash.
The subsequent Hamas offensive of bombings
killed 60 people in nine days in the streets
of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Ashkelon.
Israelis from all walks of life
speculated that whatever deterrent
effect the assassinations -
variously called liquidations,
targeted killings,
or focused preventions -
might have on terrorists,
the resultant terror reprisals
proved even more costly.
Still later, there was a distinct
sense on the right that the Israeli
military and the Shin Bet security
service were holding back,
refraining from deadly attacks on
a range of figures the right viewed
as legitimate and deserving targets,
up to and including Yasser Arafat.
At the same time,
the left argued that the killings
were specifically timed to foil
the possibility of progress in
toward peace with the Palestinians.
There was also widespread debate
in Israel over the large number of
innocent bystanders killed during
air raids and other assassination
operations.
Then came the gamble of Ariel Sharon's life.
After the prime minister ordered
the successive assassinations of
Hamas founding leaders Abdel Aziz
Rantisi and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
in early 2004,
the defense establishment advised
Israelis to prepare for what they
already expected,
a terrorist version of World War III.
Mourners trailing Sheikh Yassin's
body in a Gaza funeral procession
chanted "He'll kill more in death
than he did alive."
Instead,
through a combination of factors,
including a herculean effort by
Israeli counter-terrorism forces,
what we have seen since is a
marked moderation in public
statements by Hamas,
a relative truce by the group,
and a drastic drop in the
statistics of terrorism.
In 2002, for example,
at the height of the intifada,
terrorists killed 450 Israelis.
In 2004, the total was 117.
And last year,
the year of the disengagement,
the number was 45.
Of this total, the Shin Bet said,
Hamas was directly responsible for
the killing of only one.
What now? Now we wait.
Since the weekend attack,
no fewer than nine Palestinian
gunmen have been killed in
assassination raids.
The Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs
are working on their response as these
words are being written.
And the Israeli military has made clear that
those who are planning the terrorism to come,
can expect nothing but more assassinations.
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