In 1998, Sheik Ahmed Yassin
said, “The day in which I will die as a martyr will be the happiest
day of my life.” Sunday was that day, yet so few seem to share
in any joy. Instead, fury has swept the Middle East from Gaza to Dubai,
accompanied by unanimous calls for revenge. Palestinians swarmed into
the streets in the tens of thousands, firing rounds into the air,
ululating, rubbing their hands in Yassin’s blood and demanding
swift retribution. Of course, the revenge they speak of will not be
revenge against those responsible for Yassin’s death and their
oppression – the Israeli army and the Israeli politicians. They
mean the revenge of the school buses and pizza parlors. Palestinians
and the citizens of Arab states overwhelmingly supported Sheikh Yassin,
his means and goal – ceaseless terrorism until the State of
Israel disappears – so this has meant the loss of their champion.
Israel promises that the next Hamas leader to take up the green flag
will meet the same fate. And so on, until a Palestinian leadership
emerges that believes in a two-state solution as the goal, and negotiations
as the means.
The
European reaction to the assassination of Sheikh Yassin is at once
appalling and understandable. Appalling because they are generally
expected to uphold civilization, not criticize a democracy’s
lonely self-defense against a decades-long terror campaign so methodical
that Human Rights Watch, the world’s most prominent human rights
group, has declared it constitutes crimes against humanity. Let one
European official answer this question: why doesn’t Israel have
the right to eliminate the founding leader of a terrorist movement
that in seeking its extermination refuses both compromise and peace,
has for over a decade systematically murdered its citizens, and is
responsible for 425 attacks – including 50 suicide bombings
– in the last three and a half years alone? What should Israel
do about Hamas? Ask Yasir Arafat to extradite Hamas leaders? Danish
Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said that, “Of course we are
against assassinations like this. This is not the way ahead. There's
only one way ahead, and that is political.” Would he have Israel
enter into negotiations with Hamas? Does he know that Hamas’
charter rejects any forms of negotiations, and regards the very suggestion
as traitorous? Suicide bombings have by now become so routine that
the dispatch of their godfather attracts more censure that the bombings
themselves.
Somehow though, this time
around, after Spain, the double standard is particularly shameful.
The Europeans will not caution Spain to avoid “escalation”
in hunting down the Madrid train bombers, worrying that such a response
will lead to more bombings. “World anger after Hamas killings,”
screams a BBC headline. That more condemnation would be generated
by the rightful assassination of a terrorist mastermind than for his
thousands of innocent civilian victims is beyond hypocrisy –
it is total moral failure. It does not augur good things for the world
while we witness deadly jihadist attacks in Russia, Indonesia, Morocco,
Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Kashmir, Afghanistan, India,
Thailand, the Philippines, Kenya, Spain…how many people must
they kill before we realize that they must be stopped? Hamas’
jihad to establish an Islamic theocracy is no different from al Qaeda’s
jihad or anyone else’s jihad.
Three criticisms have
been leveled against the Yassin assassination: first, it will not
help the peace process; second, it was against international law;
and third, it will create more terrorism. All three claims are amoral
and nonsensical. Kofi Annan says the attack did not “do anything
to help the search for a peaceful solution.” As if that was
the intent – it was to execute a preacher of hate whose group
has massacred hundreds and mutilated thousands more. The peace process
has had no more unwavering a foe than the Islamic fascists of Hamas.
Their first suicide bombings was in April 1993, five months before
the handshake on the White House lawn that initiated the Oslo peace
process, and they have never let up since. Not only was there was
never any political peace process with Hamas, they are the chief obstacle
to peace in the Middle East, for no progress can occur as long as
the terrorism endures.
The charge that Israelis
have violated international law is false. Terrorists, who wear no
uniforms, are part of no hierarchically organized army, and who deliberately
target civilians to spread fear, anxiety and death do not benefit
from protection, either from international law or the Geneva Accords.
They are not entitled to due process or a court hearing. Israel and
Hamas are enmeshed in a war – the rules of which Israel adheres
to, while Hamas holds them in contempt – and in war you kill
the leaders of the enemy army.
As for the third criticism,
terrorists too often benefit from mythologization: they are not a
many-headed hydra, whose decapitation only springs new heads. The
cause of terrorism is terrorists – living, breathing, violent
human beings – and eliminating them means they do not attack
thereafter. Israel should not worry about the repercussions of going
after Hamas any more than Spanish officials should in seeking out
those responsible for 3-11 or the U.S. should in hunting al Qaeda.
Sheik Yassin was after all the Palestinian Osama bin Laden. The logic
of “don’t kill the killers because it will make them want
to kill you more” is perverse. This attack has infuriated Hamas,
and it will result in attempts at retribution, for which Israel is
on high alert. But this does not mean the bombing was a bad idea:
tomorrow’s bombings of revenge are no less deadly than last
week’s bombings of non-revenge in Ashdod, or the hundreds before
it. In the meantime, Israel will have demonstrated to Hamas that it
will be met head-on without fear, without pause and without compromise.
Cars drove through the streets airing recordings of Yassin declaring,
“We chose this road, and will end with martyrdom or victory.”
Hamas will never have victory. Yassin wanted martyrdom; Israel had
no choice but to oblige.
The mealy-mouthed response
of the U.S. administration, which claims to lead the global fight
against terrorism, is pathetic. Initially, they were quiet, but by
the end of the day on Monday they had reversed course: “When
you see thousands of people all over the Arab world coming out into
the streets, it’s hard to ignore that,” an administration
official said. For the U.S., like most other countries, the official
reaction to Sunday’s event was formed not by genuine outrage,
legal considerations or strategic concerns about the peace process,
but by cold hard realpolitik. The world would respond differently
if there were 280 million Israelis and 6 million Arabs, if there were
22 large Jewish states (and markets) and 1 tiny Arab state; if Israel
had 1.2 billion co-religionists, the vast remainder of the world’s
precious oil supply, large expatriate populations in most European
countries, and produced the majority of the world’s most fearsome
terrorists to threaten you into appeasement.
Read "Martyred,"
by the Editors of The New Republic.
Read "Hamas
Terror Master," by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz on National Review
Online.
Read "World
expects Israelis to play by different rules," by Licia Corbella,
editor of the Calgary Sun.
