Robert Fisk: The gloves are off in terror war, and everyone is at risk

The (UK) Star ^ | 3.23.04 | Robert Fisk

[mhking]

London - It doesn't take an awful lot of courage to murder a paraplegic in a wheelchair. But it takes only a few moments to absorb the implications of the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin yesterday.

Yes, he enthusiastically endorsed suicide bombings - including the murder of Israeli children. Yes, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, in a wheelchair or not. But something went wrong with the narrative of the news story yesterday, and something infinitely more dangerous - another sinister precedent - was set for our brave new world.

Take the old man himself. From the start, the Israeli line was simple. Yassin was the "head of the snake" - to use the words of the Israeli ambassador to London - the head of Hamas, "one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organisations".

But then came obfuscation from the world's media. Yassin, BBC World Service Television told us at lunchtime, was originally freed by the Israelis in a "prisoner exchange". Then, later in the day, the BBC told us that he had been freed "following a deal brokered by King Hussein".

Which was all very strange. He was a prisoner of the Israelis. This "head of the snake" was in an Israeli prison. And then - bingo - this supposed monster was let go because of a "deal". So let's remember what the "deal" was.

Yassin was set free by no less than Benjamin Netanyahu when he was prime minister of Israel. King Hussein wasn't a "broker" between two sides.

Two Israeli Mossad agents had tried to murder a Hamas official in Amman, the capital of an Arab nation which had a peace agreement with Israel.

They had injected the Hamas man with poison, and the late King Hussein called the US president in fury and threatened to put the captured Mossad men on trial if he wasn't given the antidote to the poison and if Yassin wasn't released.

Netanyahu immediately gave in. Yassin was freed and the Mossad lads went safely home to Israel.

So the "head of the snake" was let loose by Israel itself, courtesy of the then Israeli prime minister - a chapter in the narrative of history which was conveniently forgotten yesterday. Which is all very odd.

If the elderly cleric really was worthy of state murder, why did Netanyahu let him go in the first place? It was not a question that anyone wanted to ask yesterday.

But there was something infinitely more dangerous in all this. Yet another Arab had been assassinated. The Americans want to kill Bin Laden. They want to kill Mullah Omar. They killed Saddam's sons. Just as they killed three al-Qaeda men in Yemen.

The Israelis repeatedly threaten to murder Yasser Arafat. It's getting to be a habit.

No one has begun to work out the implications of all this. For years, there has been an unwritten rule in the cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla. You can kill the men on the street, the bomb-makers and gunmen, but the leadership was allowed to survive.

Now all has changed utterly. Anyone who advocates violence - even if they are palpably incapable of committing it - are now on a death list. So who can be surprised if the rules are broken by the other side?

The top guys are now in the firing line. Let us not say we didn't know.

[Capt. Tom]

How soon they forget. - Tom

[Ready4Freddy]

Wasn't Yassin released in 1996? He founded Hamas in 1988, I think.

[ohioman]

Israel ought to attack Fisk.

[Don Joe]

Who on earth could believe they wouldn't assassinate the hell out of our side if they had the means?

Who on Earth has forgotten the origin of the word "assassin"? (I mean, besides the bleeding heart liberals who rise to their defense.)

[Don Joe]

"For years, there has been an unwritten rule in the cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla. You can kill the men on the street, the bomb-makers and gunmen, but the leadership was allowed to survive."

I would love to see even a shred of evidence that such an "unwritten rule" ever existed anywhere other than Fisk's imagination.

I think he's drawing on the ancient maxim, "Only a King can kill a King", but in the process, he's elevating terrorist scum to the prestige of Kings of nations.

Perhaps that's why he didn't quote the maxim, but chose rather to bastardize it.

[Don Joe]

Either this guy is incredibly naive or he is an idiot. The 'other side' threw away the rules long ago. The only reason they still exist to create mayhem is because we so stupidly played by rules. Fire in the hole...kill them all. That is the only rule we should abide by.

The only comedic aspect to this episode is that for a leftist, he's sure starting to sound like a moderate Republican. Take the Marquis of Queensbury Rules to a streetfight, and then go home bloody.

Oops, I just saw his picture. I guess he's at least living by his principles, LOL!

[Graymatter]

I see everyone's all lathered up about this article. Me, I got as far as the word 'murder' and quit. Knew the word 'assassination' wouldn't be far behind, somewhere in a spinning torrent of liberal bullfeathers.

If you want to get riled by lib pundits there are some intel...oh wait, no there aren't. :)

[MarMema]

It's getting to be a habit.

Burning churches and killing people in Kosovo, blowing up next to strollers with babies in them in Israel, taking hostages in a theatre in Moscow, flying commercial planes into the trade center and Pentagon, blowing up subways and trains in Moscow and Madrid. Now that's what is getting to be a habit.

Let the Israelis show them we're not going to take it any more. And more power to the Israelis, and to the Russians, and to us, for taking out the evil on this planet. May God bless us all.

[Spok]

the gloves were never on.

[goldstategop]

Israel should have kicked ass years ago. Why they waited so long, I'll never understand. The key to eliminate the fearsome terrorist violence from the planet is to kill off the men who provide the ideological and political inspiration for it. That's important especially in the Middle East, where the Number One growth (and export) industry is Terrorism. Robert Fisk writes we don't know what we've done. We're cutting off the hydra-tenacled monster at the roots - which is exactly what we should have been doing from the beginning. As President Bush so succinctly put it, its a struggle between good and evil and there is no neutral ground. Its about time those who support terrorists understood exactly where we stand and absorbed the message: its a good day for their patrons and them to die!

[joesnuffy]

The only regret those who actually fight terrorism should have about putting a 2.75" fleshette rocket up that monster's wheelchair bound wazoo....is that Fisk wasnt sitting on his lap when it happend
imo

[sphinx]

For years, there has been an unwritten rule in the cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla

The cruel war is not government vs. guerrilla -- it's guerrilla vs. women, children, and innocents on the street. Government vs. guerrilla is just pest control.

[paul51]

Scholars, gentlemen and civilized diplomates dealing with terrorists according to rule of engagement won't hurt terrorists. Dirty hard asses hunting them down all over the world and killing them where ever they are found will.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The other side recognizes rules? What would those be, exactly?

Hama Rules:

Rule #1: There are no rules

Rule #2: Rule or die.

[JasonC]

"an unwritten rule in the cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla. You can kill the men on the street, the bomb-makers and gunmen, but the leadership was allowed to survive"

Complete, unmixed nuance. Somebody tell Sadat that terrorists spare leaders. "A corpse in a suit is worth 10 in uniform" - Carlos the Jackal. Terrorists have never shown the slightest restraint, of any kind.

But one person is not part of the "everyone" at risk. Mr. Fisk. When what this article really is, is an insinuated invitation to criminal acts in Israel and the west. Preemptively approved by Fisk's fatwa.

[DuncanWaring]

...cruel war of government-versus-guerrilla.

It's not "government-versus-guerrilla".

It's "civilization-versus-barbarism".

[JasonC]

You don't get it. He is inviting the terrorists to kill our leaders. He is excusing it ahead of time. He is issuing his own fatwas against Sharon and Bush and Blair. Now does it make sense? Yes, that is how livid they are that one of their terrorist buddies got a taste of his own. Yes, that is exactly the underhanded passive voice "things may tend toward" that the axis of weasel thrives on. This article is just a roundabout death threat in pretty propagandist's clothing.

[gatorgriz]

You're using logic in an attempt to refute liberal drivel... Liberals don't believe in logic or common sense for that matter; they believe in the feeling of the moment...

Freegards!

[rmlew]

Not the Israelis. They just killed the modern "Old man of the mountian".