Posted on 03/23/2004 6:28:21 AM PST by veronica
Ahmed Yassin's death is a signal victory for Israel and for the war against terrorism. He was the military and spiritual leader of the terror war against Israel, just as Osama bin Laden is, or was, the military and spiritual leader of the war against the West.
The killing of Yassin by an IDF missile has spawned the usual flurry of claims that it was a futile and foolish act. Shinui ministers Yosef Lapid and Avraham Poraz voted against the hit, arguing that it was obviously justified but would not reduce terrorism. Yahad leader Yossi Beilin said, "The killing of Sheikh Yassin is liable to open a cycle of blood and exact a heavy and needless cost in blood from Israel." This is insanity. Does anyone really think that Hamas needed further excuses to kill as many Israeli men, women, and children as possible? The March 14 double suicide bombing in Ashdod Port that killed 10 was aiming for a much bigger attack against the explosive and toxic chemicals stored there, as were other attempted attacks against refineries.
Intent, as Americans learned on 9/11, is not a limiting factor for the jihadis the West faces today. Not in New York, Bali, Madrid, Jerusalem, or even in Riyadh or Casablanca. The idea that by not fighting back we can limit the terrorists' appetite for death is exactly what they want us to believe. The engendering of such beliefs is precisely the jihadis' theory of victory, the tipping point at which terror has won and will only worsen in order to deepen the victory and the West's subjugation.
To our shame and sorrow, we Israelis have all to often succumbed to such thinking. Almost no one in the US would suggest that killing Osama bin Laden could be counterproductive in the war against terrorism. Yet our airwaves are filled with the equivalent idea. Whether it is the terrorists themselves, the mid-level masterminds, or leaders like Yassin, we are told that they will be easily replaced and that fighting back will only produce a hundred more.
We must not heed this counsel of defeat and doom. We must continue to prove that terror itself is futile, not the war against it. When new terrorist leaders arise, they too must be attacked. There should be no safety, let alone a career as a media interviewee, in the vocation of terror.
If any government in the world knows this, it is the administration of President George W. Bush. Yet the official State Department reaction was: "The United States urges all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint." This was an improvement on the hectoring tone adopted by European foreign ministers, including Britain's Jack Straw, who with not a little chutzpa and in a curious echo of his own domestic critics on the war in Iraq, characterized the Yassin attack as unjustified, unlawful, and unacceptable. Israel ought to expect more from an ally currently involved in often bloody anti-terrorist efforts around the globe.
US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did subsequently straighten the record somewhat, saying, "Let's remember that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that Sheik Yassin has himself, personally, we believe, been involved in terrorist planning." But why was the US State Department so quick to imply that Israel and Hamas must both be "restrained?" Is there nothing worthy of praise in the elimination of the leader of an organization that has murdered numerous American citizens and places prominently on the US terrorist list?
No, killing Ahmed Yassin will not end the war. No single battle ever does. Pay no attention to those who say that because a battle did not win the war, it was not worth fighting. It was not a counterproductive act, even though Hamas will attempt to "retaliate." What is counterproductive is to allow leaders who organize and fuel terror and call for Israel's destruction to enjoy personal immunity.
Israel has no option of losing this war, which is not about territory, but our existence. Our options are only to win more quickly, or to prolong it through our own ambivalence over whether to fight.
Event Terrorists Freedom Fighters 9/11 1 0 Taliban 0 1 Iraq 0 1 Spain 1 0 Yassin 0 1
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