[GushShalom] On martyrdom and the limited horizon of generals

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/

[In the following you read how Uri Avnery places the assassination of 
Sheikh Yassin in context, and in the four forwarded articles of the 
Israeli-Palestinian email magazine Bitter Lemons (Assassinations and the 
conflict - Ed.12) you find the subject approached from several 
significant  angles.]

# Avnery on martyrdom and the limited horizon of generals  
# Back to an existential fight - Ghassan Khatib 
# Bankruptcy - Yossi Alpher 
# Yassin and the camp of death - Eyad el Sarraj 
# Targeted killings: a retro fashion - Yossi Melman 

               \\// //\\ \\// //\\ \\//      
   				
# Avnery on martyrdom and the limited horizon of generals 

Uri Avnery
27.3.04

òáøéú áàúø / Hebrew on the website 
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/hebrew/index.html

			Three Generals, One Martyr

     Five hundred black- and white-bearded Hamas members were sitting 
opposite me. Venerable sheikhs and young people. On the side, some rows 
were occupied by women. I was standing on the stage, talking in Hebrew, 
with the crossed flags of Israel and Palestine on my lapel.
     As I have recounted already several times, it happened like this: at 
the end of 1992, the new Prime Minister, Yitzhaq Rabin, expelled 415 
Islamic activists - mostly Hamas members - to the Lebanese border area. 
In protest, we put up tents opposite the Prime Minister's office in 
Jerusalem. There we spent 45 days and nights - Israeli peace activists 
(who were later to found Gush Shalom) and Arab citizens of Israel, mostly 
members of the Islamic movement. Most of the time it was very cold, and 
some days our tents were covered with snow. There was a lot of debate in 
the tents, the Jews learning something about Islam and the Muslims 
something about Judaism.
     The expelled militants themselves vegetated for a year in the hilly 
landscape, between the Israeli and Lebanese armies. The whole world 
followed their suffering. After a year they were allowed back, and the 
Hamas leaders in Gaza organized a homecoming reception for them in the 
biggest hall in town. They invited those Israelis who had protested 
against the expulsion. I was asked to make a speech. I spoke about peace, 
and in the intermission we were invited to have lunch with the hosts. I 
was impressed by the friendly attitude of the hundreds of people who were 
there.
     Undoubtedly, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the spokesman of the expellees, 
Dr. Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantissi (who became Sheikh Yassin's successor last 
week) would have been present, too, if they had not been kept in prison.
     I recount this experience in order to point out that the picture of 
Hamas as an inveterate enemy of all peace and compromise is not accurate. 
Of course, 10 years of bloodshed, suicide bombings and targeted 
assassinations have passed since then. But even now, the picture is much 
more complex than meets the eye.
     There are different tendencies in Hamas. The ideological hard core 
does indeed refuse any peace or compromise with Israel. They consider it 
a foreign implantation in Palestine, which in Islamic doctrine is a 
Muslim "wakf" (religious grant). But many Hamas sympathizers do not treat 
the organization as an ideological center but rather as an instrument for 
fighting Israel in pursuit of realistic objectives.
      Sheikh Yassin himself announced some months ago in a German paper 
that the fight would be discontinued after the establishment of a 
Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Recently, he offered a "hudna" 
(truce) for 30 years. (Which strongly reminds one of Ariel Sharon's 
suggestion that Israel would give up the Gaza Strip and retain large 
parts of the West Bank for an interim phase to last for 20 years.)
      Therefore, the murder of the Sheikh did not serve any positive aim. 
It was an act of folly.
      The three generals who actually direct the affairs of Israel - 
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Minister of Defense Sha'ul Mofaz and Chief-
of-Staff Mosh Ya'alon - maintain that "in the short run" the 
assassination would indeed increase the attacks on Israeli citizens, but 
"in the long run" it would help to "rout terrorism". They are very 
careful not to spell out when the "short run" ends and the "long run" 
begins. Our generals do not believe in timetables.
     I take the liberty to tell these three illustrious strategists: 
Nonsense  in tomato juice! (as you say in Hebrew slang). Or rather, 
nonsense in blood.
     In the short run, this action endangers our personal security; in 
the long run it represents an even greater danger to our national 
security.
      In the short run, it has increased the motivation for Hamas to 
carry out deadly attacks. Every Israeli understands this and is taking 
extra precautions these days. But the less obvious results are much more 
threatening. 
     In the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children in the 
Palestinian territories and the Arab countries, this murder has raised a 
storm of rage and thirst for revenge, together with feelings of 
frustration and humiliation in view of the impotence of the Arab world. 
This will produce not only thousands of new potential suicide bombers 
inside the country, but also tens of thousands of volunteers for the 
radical Islamic organizations throughout the Arab world. (I know, because 
at the age of 15 I joined the armed underground in similar circumstances.)
     There is no stronger weapon for a fighting organization than a 
martyr. Suffice it to mention Avraham Stern, alias Ya'ir, who was killed 
by the British police in Tel-Aviv in 1942. His blood gave an impulse to 
the emergence of the Lehi underground (nicknamed "the Stern gang") which 
only four years later was playing a major role in the expulsion of the 
British from Palestine.
     But Ya'ir's standing was nothing compared to the standing of Sheikh 
Yassin. The man was practically born to fulfil the role of a sainted 
martyr: a religious personality, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, broken in 
body but not in spirit, a militant who spent years in prison, a leader 
who continued his fight after miraculously surviving an earlier 
assassination attempt, a hero cowardly murdered from the air while 
leaving the mosque after prayer. Even a writer of genius could not have 
invented a figure more suited to the adoration of a billion Muslims, in 
this and coming generations.    
     The murder of Yassin will encourage cooperation among the 
Palestinian fighting organizations. Here, too, a parallel with the Hebrew 
underground presents itself. In a certain phase of the fight against the 
British, there was much unrest among the members of the Hagana, the semi-
official underground army of the Zionist leadership (comparable to Fatah 
today). The Hagana (which included the elite Palmakh formation)  was seen 
to be inactive, while the Irgun and Lehi appeared as heroes who carried 
out incredibly audacious actions. The ferment inside the Hagana caused 
the emergence of a group called "Fighting Nation" which advocated close 
cooperation between the various organizations. A number of Hagana members 
simply went over to Lehi.
      Now it is happening among the Palestinians. The lines between the 
various groups are becoming more and more blurred. Al-Aqsa Martyrs' 
Brigade members cooperate with Hamas and Jihad, contrary to the orders of 
their political leadership, saying that "since we are killed together, 
let us fight together". This phenomenon is bound to grow and make the 
attacks more effective.
     Hamas' popularity among the population is rising sky-high, together 
with its capability to carry out attacks. This does not mean that the 
Palestinian public accepts the aim of an Islamic state or that it has 
given up the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Even among 
Hamas members, many embrace this idea. But the admiration of the masses 
for the attackers and their actions reflects the conviction that the 
Israelis understand only the language of force, and that experience 
proves that without extreme violence the Palestinians will not achieve 
anything at all.
     Unfortunately, there is no real evidence for the opposite. The truth 
is that the Palestinians have never achieved anything without resorting 
to violence. Therefore the petitions being signed these days by well-
meaning Palestinian personalities, calling for an end to the armed 
struggle, will have no effect. They cannot point to any other method that 
will sound convincing to their public. And our government always, without 
exception, presents such moves as a sign of weakness.
      In the even longer run, the assassination of Yassin poses an 
existential danger. For five generations, the Israel-Palestinian conflict 
was essentially a national conflict - a clash between two great national 
movements, each of which claimed the country for itself. A national 
conflict is basically rational, it can be solved by compromise. This may 
be difficult, but it is possible. Our nightmare has always been that the 
national struggle would turn into a religious one. Since every religion 
claims to represent absolute truth, religious struggles do not allow for 
compromise.
     The martyrdom of Sheikh Yassin pushes even further away the chance 
of Israel ever attaining peace and tranquility, normal relations with its 
neighbors, with a flourishing economy. It increases the danger that 
future generations of Arabs and Muslims will view it as a foreign 
implantation, installed in this region by force, with every decent 
Muslim, from Morocco to Indonesia, duty-bound to strive for its uprooting.
     Such insights are far from the capability of our three generals to 
absorb. Sharon, Mofaz, Ya'alon and their ilk understand only brute force 
in the service of a narrow nationalism. Peace does not inspire them, for 
them compromise is a dirty word. It is quite clear that they will feel 
much more comfortable if the Palestinian people is led by fanatical 
religious fighters than by a man prepared to compromise like Yasser 
Arafat.     
					~~~

# Back to an existential fight - Ghassan Khatib
 A PALESTINIAN VIEW 

Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian activists and leaders has 
now escalated to touch the very highest tiers of Palestinian leadership, 
supposedly in response to the provocation of Palestinian suicide 
bombings. This change marks a new wider shift in the tenor and very 
nature of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict and 
confrontations. 
While it is easy to view the killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin as part of 
the ongoing escalation of violence between the two sides, that view is 
also simplistic. One must explore the strategic roots of this ever-
growing phenomenon, and that question must turn the focus on the Israeli 
government as the only variable that has changed since the breakdown in 
talks. 
We now have a government in Israel that is responsible for transforming 
the nature of our struggle. Previously, Palestinians and Israelis were 
more or less in agreement over the guidelines to the solution--basically 
the two state solution as stipulated in the terms of reference of the 
peace process and international legality. The differences between the two 
sides were not minor, but they all were located in determining the 
details of this solution. For example, at the 2000 Camp David talks, 
agreement broke down over various details of how to implement two states: 
the percentage of Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, the 
borders that would be drawn between the two states, which settlements 
would be dismantled, how to solve the refugee issue, how to divide 
Jerusalem, and so on. 
Since then, a revolution has taken place. The peace camp in Israel is 
entirely marginalized and those groups that opposed the peace process are 
now in power. That opposition has capitalized on this new reality and 
succeeded in transferring the conflict and confrontations from a 
discussion over the details of creating two neighboring states to an 
existential conflict. This Israeli government has spent most of its 
energies trying to negate 
the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state by reoccupying the territories of the Palestini
an Authority and gradually emasculating the Palestinian Authority itself. 
This new character of the conflict naturally brings new levels of confrontation. It is useful to re
member that Israel tried the assassination policy on the Palestinian leadership in previous phases 
of the struggle, namely
 before the initiation of the peace process and at a time when the two sides had not yet decided to
 compromise, but were still trying to wipe each other out. The 1960s and 70s witnessed a great numb
er of Israeli assassina
tions of leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. 
But Israel did not learn its lesson. Those assassinations only succeeded 
in intensifying the confrontations and increasing determination among 
Palestinians to continue the fight. The same can be said for the current 
round of political eliminations. Assassinations strengthen Palestinian 
hostility, and consequently provide a backbone for the ongoing violence. 
But let us make no mistakes. Those Israelis who understand Palestinian 
political structures and aspirations also knew in advance the likely 
outcome of this assassination for the Palestinian balance of power. 
Therefore, if they were trying to systematically tilt this balance 
further against the Palestinian Authority, the peace camp, and the 
secular camp, then they have made no mistakes. -Published 
29/3/2004©bitterlemons.org 
Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-
international.org. He is minister of labor in the Palestinian government 
and for many years prior was featured in the press as a political 
analyst. 
				~~~~

# Bankruptcy - Yossi Alpher
 AN ISRAELI VIEW 

A week after the assassination by Israel of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, it is 
easy to draw up a list of justifications for the act. It is equally easy 
to demonstrate that on balance the killing was a serious mistake, 
reflecting a dangerous absence of strategic wisdom on the part of its 
perpetrators. But this entire discussion of the assassination of a 
terrorist must not be allowed to obfuscate the more important basic fact 
that the assassinations reflect: none of the relevant leaders has a 
realistic strategy for peace, or even for ending the violence. 
This targeted killing was justified because Sheikh Yassin was a major 
terrorist leader, and in the post 9/11 era there are no longer 
inhibitions about eliminating terrorist leaders. It was popular with the 
Israeli public because the public, legitimately, wants its terrorist 
tormentors to be punished. With Israel having announced its plan to leave 
the Gaza Strip, it was legitimate to expect that terrorism from and 
within Gaza would cease; when it did not, and when Hamas leaders, with 
Hezbollah's backing, escalated the terrorism (the Ashdod port attack), it 
made sense to launch a campaign to send a message of strength, and to 
diminish Hamas in favor of more
 moderate Palestinians, as part and parcel of the withdrawal plan. And while the murder of a quadri
plegic political-religious figure in a wheelchair as he was leaving a mosque undoubtedly seems grot
esque and cynical, it d
oes send a deterrent message to Yassin's fellow religious terrorist leaders: witness the effect of 
the hu! miliating capture of Saddam Hussein on the likes of Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi. A previo
us round of assassinati
ons led Hamas to agree to a hudna or ceasefire. 
There is also an obvious political angle--cynical, but real--to the Yassin killing. By this act, Pr
ime Minister Ariel Sharon silenced the militant critics of his disengagement plan within the Likud,
 and seemingly enhanced
 his "irreplaceable" status in anticipation of a possible criminal indictment. Some would add that 
there is an international angle, too--one that refers to the global war on terrorism: the election 
of the Zapatero governm
ent in Spain, with its platform of withdrawing from Iraq on the heels of the Qaeda attacks in Madri
d, ostensibly sealed Yassin's fate, in the sense that a strong and aggressive anti-terrorist messag
e was called for to cou
nter the impression of appeasement emanating from Spain. 
All these arguments and more can be mustered to justify the Yassin assassination. Yet it remains an
 act of futility, if not stupidity. While it may reduce Hamas' capabilities by striking at one lead
er and forcing others t
o go deep underground, it does not deter; on the contrary, it only increases the motivation of both
 the lower ranks and the leadership to kill Israelis, now including Israeli political leaders. Whil
e some moderate Arab le
aders who fear militant Islam may secretly rejoice over Yassin's killing, they remain angry at Isra
el and embarrassed by its actions. Jordan's King Abdullah, in particular, was compromised and weake
ned in Arab eyes becaus
e he had met with Sharon scarcely two days before the assassination. Plans for the end-March Tunis 
Arab summit to reinforce the commendable Saudi peace initiative of two years ago were scrapped (alo
ng with the entire summ
it) by compromised Arab moderates. Perhaps of most concern, Yassin's martyrdom is liable to incite 
the Ar! ab street to greater religious extremism and anti-Americanism, far from the borders of Isra
el. 
After balancing out the pros and cons of this assassination, and in general of the policy of assass
inating the political leadership of anti-Israeli terrorist organizations, the bottom line points to
 the strategic bankrupt
cy not just of Israel, but of all the relevant parties. Israel and the Palestinians appear to be ca
pable of responding only to violence. It is difficult in logical terms to support the convoluted cl
aim that we are softeni
ng up Gaza in March 2004 in anticipation of a justified withdrawal that is sponsored by a lame duck
 prime minister for all the wrong reasons (e.g., holding onto the West Bank) and which, if it happe
ns, is scheduled for th
e summer of 2005. The seemingly endless succession of empty slogans emanating from the Israel Defen
se Forces (IDF) leadership since this intifada began--"let the IDF win," "burn defeat into their co
nsciousness," "Hamas is
 a strategic enemy" (what was it before, a tactical enemy?)--all reflect 
the lack of a strategy for endin! g the violence and winning the peace. 
Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership, including that of Hamas, 
have even less of a claim to a realistic strategy: they started the 
current conflict, have suffered far more, and appear to have learned 
nothing, whereas Sharon is at least planning to disengage. And US 
President George W. Bush seems oblivious to the damage caused by our 
conflict to his program of "freedom and democracy" in the Middle East. 
If only Sharon at least had a realistic strategy for peace, 
assassinations might not be necessary. Certainly they would be far more 
justified. -Published 29/3/2004©bitterlemons.org 
Yossi Alpher is coeditor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-
international.org. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for 
Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior adviser to 
PM Ehud Barak. 
					~~~

# Yassin and the camp of death - Eyad el Sarraj
 A PALESTINIAN VIEW 

I was apprehensive all night as the TV satellite reception was 
dysfunctional, a usual sign of Israeli spy drones invading our skies when 
they are on their way to prepare a kill. 
At 5:20 am, I was awakened by the thundering noise of the low flying F16, 
another sign of the Israelis closing in on a target. Five minutes later I 
heard a distant explosion and the local Palestinian TV station, the only 
available source of news, announced the assassination of Sheikh Ahmad 
Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas. 
Immediately, Gaza was sealed off by the Israel Defense Forces, as was the 
West Bank--a prison locked. The skies filled with dark clouds of smoke as 
burning tires suddenly appeared in every corner. Tens of thousands 
gathered in the streets demanding revenge as the funeral procession of 
Yassin made its way to the cemetery. Gaza had never been this way before. 
Every man and woman was shaken with apprehension of what will come next. 
The killing of Yassin was not surprising. Israeli officials recently 
declared that everyone, including the leaders of militant groups, is a 
legitimate target. It was obvious that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel 
Sharon was incensed by the suicide bombing in Ashdod, not only because a 
number of Israelis were killed, but because it proved that infiltration 
inside Israel remains possible in defiance of the notorious wall Israel 
has constructed and all of its other security measures. 
Indeed, this whole story can be viewed as another form of the tribal revenge and retaliation that h
as continued for more than three years. Politicians and commentators are declaring that Sharon is m
ad and that by killing 
Yassin, he is throwing the whole area, if not the world, into chaos. But I don't think Sharon is ma
d or acting in retaliation. He has a plan, and it is working. 
Sharon has succeeded in turning the clock back, destroying the Oslo agreement and the Palestinian A
uthority as a partner. Sharon has decided that peace is a mortal danger to Israel because it entail
s giving up the land in
 the West Bank. More seriously, Sharon is determined to kill the dream of the "loony left" of a bin
ational state. He is ready to sacrifice even more Jews to stop it. Violation of international law i
s unimportant and the n
umber of Palestinians murdered is of no consequence. Yassin is just another number on Sharon's list
; there will be many to follow. 
The killing of Yassin may well be one of the final nails in the coffin of the Palestinian Authority
, after Sharon has meticulously carved it piece by piece into nothing. Not only intent on destroyin
g the Authority, Sharon
 is all the more determined to kill any future partner--including Hamas. 
Interestingly, Yassin once accepted an end to the conflict, one that included a Palestinian state n
ext to Israel, and thus abandoned the dream of an Islamic state in historic Palestine. His main tar
get was to end the Isra
eli occupation. It is important to remember that Hamas and all forms of resistance were born out of
 the Israeli occupation. 
Last summer Yassin was instrumental in bringing to bear a unilateral ceasefire that held for nearly
 two months. Yassin was much-respected. His killing has elevated him to the level of sainthood, to 
a powerful model of mar
tyrdom. 
In the aftermath of Yassin's murder, Hamas could credibly strengthen its hold and assume the leader
ship in Palestine as President Yasser Arafat's Authority has degenerated into a symbol of humiliati
on and impotence. This 
was ingeniously executed by Sharon, helped--no doubt--by the Palestinian lack of leadership and vis
ion, and at times assisted by blessings from the White House. 
The killing of Sheikh Yassin in his wheelchair outside a mosque following the dawn prayer will not 
make Israel a safer place. It may temporarily offer Sharon safety in his position as he embarks on 
a new level of violence
 that will in turn make Hamas more popular and more militant and Israelis more frightened. Tragical
ly, the logic of terror has played out very well for Sharon, while helping the Bush Corporation. Sh
aron desperately needs 
a Palestinian retaliation that will strengthen his hand against his 
domestic foes. 
But it may all go wrong for Sharon and Bush alike as the truth shockingly 
becomes more apparent, and were the new leadership of Hamas to consider a 
dramatic change of course. It is not an impossibility to imagine new Gaza 
Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi on the screen telling Israelis that he 
opposes more corpses and wants a just peace--telling them that, indeed, 
revenge is not his game. 
In the killing of Yassin, only the death camp can rejoice. But this will 
be short-lived, as life always wins in the end. This is the lesson of 
history. -Published 29/3/2004©bitterlemons.org 
Dr. Eyad el Sarraj is the founder and director of the Gaza Community 
Mental Health Programme (GCMHP). 
				~~~

# Targeted killings: a retro fashion - Yossi Melman
 AN ISRAELI VIEW

Assassinations, or as they are termed in Israel, "targeted killings," are 
nothing new to the Israeli intelligence community. But over the years, at 
least until the 1970s, they were considered a last resort, a means to be 
employed rarely and wisely. 
There were a few reasons for this caution. First, many in the 
intelligence community thought over the years that espionage was not 
mafia-style Murder, Inc. More important, the policy of targeted killings 
is a double-edged sword. What you do to your opponents, they can do to 
you. 
The first time Israeli intelligence carried out an assassination was on 
July 11, 1956. Colonel Mustafa Hafez, Egyptian commander of military 
intelligence in the Gaza Strip and the man responsible for sending the 
fedayeen infiltrators to Israel, was killed when a book he received 
exploded. 
The use of mail bombs became a central tool in the 1960s, especially in 
harrassing and assassinating German (former Nazi) scientists who were 
involved in developing advanced weapons for Egypt. 
After the Six-Day War, the fight against Palestinian terror, both in the 
territories and beyond the borders of Israel, moved assassinations up the 
ladder of Israeli intelligence priorities. But the watershed was the 
murder of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 by "Black September," a 
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) front. Then Prime Minister Golda 
Meir ordered Mossad head Zvi Zamir to embark upon a campaign of targeted 
killings of anyone directly or indirectly connected with the athletes' 
murder. 
It was the first time in the history of Israeli intelligence that it had 
been directed to initiate a "project"--not a one-time killing but a 
systematic elimination of dozens of people. 
A pattern was set in motion at that time that became the basis for 
similar operations to this day. Intelligence compiled a list of targets; 
today it is known as a "bank". A special, limited forum known as the "X 
Committee" had the authority to approve Mossad requests to eliminate a 
person on the list. The X Committee would consult the attorney general, 
who served as a one-man court, sentencing the suspect to death. 
This was also the first time that the motive for the assassination was 
revenge. Although it was couched in lofty terms like "deterrence" and 
"future prevention" of terror, it was clear that the urge to avenge the 
deaths of the Israeli athletes was the main reason for the decision. 
The systematic assassination campaign suffered a near fatal blow in July 
1973 in Lillehammer, Norway, when Mossad gunmen, out to eliminate Ali 
Hassan Salameh, who was believed to be the brains of Black September, 
mistakenly shot and killed a Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Boushiki. 
The failure in Norway brought several questions into sharp relief: Are 
targeted killings worthwhile? If so, who should the targets be? Although 
clear answers have never been formulated, a kind of tacit understanding 
was reached whereby targeted killings are permissible, in certain 
circumstances, but the use of this weapon must be cautious, wise and 
rare. 
It was advisable that only senior operational commanders should be 
targeted, those whose deaths would result in a serious impairment of the 
organizations' operational capabilities. Responsibility should not be 
taken publicly so that Israel would not appear to be using terror itself, 
and so that its relations with other countries were not damaged, as they 
were with Norway and with Jordan after the attempt to assassinate Hammas 
leader Khaled Mashaal in 1997. 
The intelligence community also assumes that it is possible, even 
desirable, to hit leaders of small organizations, those that are no more 
than a "one-man show." Fathi Shikaki, leader of the Islamic Jihad, was 
killed in October 1995 on the assumption that killing him would put an 
end to the capabilities of his small organization. His presumed 
successor, Abdullah Ramadan Shalah, was considered ineffectual and 
lacking in leadership capabilities. 
Those assumptions were proved wrong. Shalah proved to be a capable 
leader, and Islamic Jihad in Gaza has produced some of the worst suicide 
bombings of recent years. 
The most important element that is always taken into consideration in 
discussions between the intelligence chiefs and the political echelon is 
the cost-benefit ratio. If the assassination leads to a severe response 
on the part of the terror organizations, then it was a losing 
proposition. 
This consideration was apparently either forgotten when it came to the 
targeted killing of the director-general of Hezbollah, Abbas Moussawi, in 
southern Lebanon in 1992, or those who made the decision operated on the 
basis of mistaken assumptions. Hezbollah's response was stinging: two car 
bombs in Buenos Aires, against the buildings housing the Israel Embassy 
and the Jewish community organization, in which more than 100 people were 
killed and many were injured. 
With hindsight, there is no doubt that many in the intelligence community 
believe that the 1988 decision to hit Khalil al-Wazir, Yasser Arafat's 
deputy, also known as Abu Jihad, was a mistake. Looking back, it is clear 
to many that his death left Arafat alone at the leadership level of the 
PLO, without the counsel of a talented and pragmatic strategist. 
Always, even at the height of assassination wars, there was a kind of 
silent agreement on both sides not to hit "national" leaders. Here and 
there, exceptions cropped up, like the failed attempt of the Popular 
Front for the Liberation of Palestine to kill then former Prime Minister 
David Ben-Gurion during a visit to Scandinavia in the 1960s, or plans 
devised already in the late 1960s and again in Lebanon in 1982 to kill 
Arafat. 
Already in 1998, after the failed attempt against Meshal, the 
subcommittee for intelligence and security services of the Knesset which 
investigated the case published an unprecedented critical statement in 
which it said,"for many years the governments of Israel have not 
formulated policies in the war against terror organizations that are 
based on fundamental thought processes and continuity...". 
But over the last three years, and especially with the unwise decision to 
kill Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, all the basic assumptions and past lessons have 
been forgotten or abandoned. From a weapon of last resort, assassination 
has become the most available of weapons; from wise and cautious use, it 
is now widespread and wholesale. 
This change has damaged another, mainly psychological, assumption: the 
mystery that surrounded previous assassinations cast fear into the hearts 
of the enemy by their very rarity and sophistication. That mystery 
dissipates the moment the act becomes routine. This, more than anything 
else, shows the long road the Israel Defense Forces and the intelligence 
and security forces have traveled, from daring and creativity to 
paralyzed thinking. 
-Published 29/3/2004©bitterlemons.org 

Yossi Melman is a senior correspondent with the Israeli daily Haaretz and 
author of several books on intelligence, clandestine diplomacy and 
foreign policy. 

For more about Bitter Lemons - http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/

---
Sending you a tin can of olive oil from Jayyous to your door step 
anywhere in the United States or Europe takes less than 4 weeks.   
By buying from the farmers of Jayyous, the first to suffer from the wall, 
you help them at a crucial moment.  Hundreds of Palestinian families will 
benefit from your choice of using their  quality oil.

To buy just click on the link below

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and please tell in the message that you want the oil to come from 
Jayyous. To learn more about Jayyous please click and read and learn and 
support the struggle of the people of Jayyous.

http://www.jayyousonline.org/english.HTM
(among other things full text of Avnery speech "The Wall Will Fall")

---
NB: links and contact information re ongoing struggle
    Against the Wall / Refusniks / Vanunu 

--
ðåëçåú éåîéåîéú áëôøéí îàéîéí ò"é äçåîä ìúàí òí 
àééáé 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il
àøé÷ 050-607034  info at rhr.israel.net

Day to day presence at villages threatened by route of wall.
Contact:  Ivy Sichel 064-604172 isichel at netvision.net.il who set's up a 
list for people who can come at short notice, or: Arik Asherman 050-
607034  info at rhr.israel.net 


--
Refuser news:

Constantly-updated list of all presently jailed refusniks:

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For the latest news about the five:   

http://www.refuz.org.il/News.html

	NB:
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	AGAF BET
	Ma’asiyaho Prison
	P.O.B 13
	Ramla
	Israel

	Adam Maor / Shimri Tzameret:
	Hermon Prison
	P.O.B 4011 
	KFAR M’RAR
	Israel

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List of international vigils on day of Vanunu release (April 21): 
http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/ 

Instead of sending flowers - an online option (paypal) for your welcome 
gesture:
<http://www.peaceispossible.info/thankyouvanunu.php>

Online petition for the unconditional release of Vanunu 
http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/freemordechaivanunu/

--
http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (òáøéú/Hebrew)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/arabic/index.html (selected articles in Arabic)

with
\\photos of recent actions 
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad 
\\the columns of Uri Avnery 
\\Gush Shalom's history & action chronicle  
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more

N.B.: 
On the Gush Shalom website links for 
Articles and documents in German, French and Spanish

In order to receive Gush Shalom's Hebrew-language 
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