The Shape of Violence to Come? Killing Yassin Was Necessary

The Shape of Violence to Come? We May Be More Vulnerable Now, But Killing Yassin Was Necessary By Yossi Klein Halevi Sunday, March 28, 2004; Page B01

According to polls taken after the assassination last Monday of Hamas terrorist leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a majority of Israelis agree that the attack has made us more vulnerable to terrorism. Yet that same majority -- which, presumably, will pay the price in the form of revenge attacks by Hamas -- believes that the assassination was not only justified, but inevitable.

That's because most Israelis, including me, understand that the Yassin killing was no mere act of vengeance or the frustrated tantrum of a government unable to stop terrorism after more than three years of war. Instead, the assassination was a carefully conceived gamble, prompted by immediate security needs and long-term psychological calculations.

The world's double standard with regard to Israel just never ends. What other democratic country in the world faces debates by the "community of nations" about whether she has the right and obligation to protect her residents from mass murderers who have been personally responsible for countless murders, mayhem, and destruction? The U.S., in its war wipe out the terrorist infrastructure of the groups that killed U.S. citizens, whether in Afganistan, Iraq, Sudan, or elsewhere quite rightly employs "targeted killings" of such demons. When Israel does exactly the same, the world is indignant and angry! Even Bush, whose doctrine says he will track terrorist leaders anywhere they are, does an about face and says Israel should not do the same and should show "restraint." The implication is that Israel should just take what it's dealt. The Islamicists can not have made it clearer decade after decade that our Western mindset of fairness, negotiation, consensus are not part of their repertoire. The is not new news. What part of their stated goal of wiping out Jews and other infidels wherever they find them do the leaders of the world not understand? More disgusting is the notion that the leaders of the world do understand and are happy to serve as handmaiden to an Islamist world order.

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