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Assassinating Israel's Adversaries Is Wrong and Also Dumb � Vincent Cannistraro Washington Post Friday, August 31, 2001 WASHINGTON The assassination this past Monday of Abu Ali Mustafa, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is another instance of a misbegotten Israeli counterterrorist program. The Israeli government has drawn up a list of Palestinian subjects who can be assassinated and is methodically carrying out targeted killings as its intelligence resources provide the opportunity.. It is apparent that the assassination campaign is neither effective nor moral. It replaces known Palestinian activists with new militants who are less known and more determined to escalate violence.. Even within the context of a major conflict with the Palestinians, it emerges as extrajudicial killing. The targets are selected and validated by a small clique composed of the prime minister, the military chief of staff and the internal security agency Shin Bet. It lacks democratic checks and judicial review.. Targeted killings may satisfy a blood lust and a perceived need for revenge, but they are ineffective in achieving their stated objective of deterring terrorism.. Yes, terrorists, along with some innocents, are "eliminated." But inevitably the conditions for more terrorism and suicide bombings, with the attendant killing of innocents, are created. The other side believes that a "blood debt" has been incurred that obligates a revenge response. The cycle of violence is perpetuated.. In 1992 the Israelis killed the secretary-general of Hezbollah, Sheikh Abbas Moussawi, believing that they were removing their chief antagonist in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, after waiting patiently for its opportunity, carried out two revenge operations against the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, with the death of more than 100 innocents. Was Hezbollah less effective after the killing of Sheikh Moussawi? Clearly, it was not. The assassinated man was succeeded by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who successfully led the Hezbollah campaign to drive Israel out of southern Lebanon after significant Israeli military casualties. That Hezbollah success now serves as an example for radical Palestinian militants and some of their state sponsors, such as Iran. In another example, the Israeli Mossad sent a hit squad to assassinate the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shikaki. The successful assassination in Malta in 1995 had as its objective the crippling of a small, religiously inspired group that had carried out a number of anti-Israeli terrorist acts. Mr. Shikaki was succeeded by Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, a relative unknown, who has now stabilized Islamic Jihad with Syrian support and promoted a new round of deadly suicide bombings inside Israel.. So what are the real accomplishments of the Israeli assassination campaign? More death, more victims, while the shrinking political middle in both Israel and Palestine, squeezed between the Israeli far right and Palestinian religious extremists, searches with fading hope for peacemakers.. The American government should not endorse or tacitly encourage a process that is illegal under U.S. law. If such actions were abetted by a U.S. official, he or she would be subject to legal sanction. The Bush administration, instead of giving the unfortunate appearance of condoning the Israeli assassination campaign - as Vice President Dick Cheney did recently in an interview with the Arab network Al Jazeera - should explicitly denounce it as immoral and counterproductive. Further, the United States should demand that American weaponry provided for the legitimate defense of Israel not be used in targeted killings. This week's assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa was accomplished with American-provided helicopters and missiles - enough rationale for some terrorist groups to target American citizens.. And of course it provides more incentive and state support for Osama bin Laden's operatives in carrying out new violence against America. Mr. Bin Laden, far from being placed "in a box" by the United States, has recently been successful in consolidating his position with the Taleban inside Afghanistan. Indeed, we may well see a resumption of terrorist activity directed against the United States by surrogates of the state sponsors of terrorism that we had all believed to have been banished from the 21st century.. As a counterterrorist technique, assassination is ineffective in accomplishing its stated goal: the deterrence of terrorism. And it comes back to haunt the perpetrators in ways they never expected.. At this critical turn in the old expressions of enmity between Israeli and Palestinian, it is imperative that the Bush administration abandon its policy of "let them bleed" and finally assume an active and positive role before there are more innocents on both sides murdered and the U.S. role in the world is discredited. The writer is a former chief of CIA counterterrorism operations. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post. |
