I don’t think Israel is interested in chopping up innocent bystanders any more than the US are willing to shoot their own allies in friendly fire incidents. That is the difference between Israeli actions and those of Hamas, who target innocent bystanders on purpose. Intention describes action.
Which it is doing with a fair degree of success.
Once we open our eyes and realise that the Geneva Convention was drawn at a time when the whole concept of asymmetric warfare, terrorism and post-modern conflicts were simply non-existent (the closest thing would have been guerrilla, which has since then become part of contemporary military training), it becomes clear that the Convention could not address issues that were not present at the time. Time to change the Convention in response to terrorist strategies.
Clinton decide to forgo such pleasantries and signed orders calling for his killing. There is a lot more to the story, but the fact is, they did want to kill Bin Laden, and tried to more than once.
Is America’s killing of Al Quaeda leaders a good strategy in the long run?
What’s the difference? War is war. There seems to be so much concern with so called “extra-judicial killing” when in fact it comes down to kill or be killed - that simple.
Desmo: First off, your points about legality are not only wrong (I’ll get to that in a second), but also irrelevant. The OP asked whether assassination of Hamas leaders is a good strategy in the long run, and unless you wish to argue that Hamas is ultimately concerned with violations of the GC, GC discussion is just a hijack. I believe I made a number of points in favor of this policy as a strategy, and if you want to discuss the OP, I suggest you respond to them.
In any case, if you wish to pursue this line of debate in contravention of the wishes of the OP, both your GC arguments can be dismantled. Art 3, Para 1, Sec d is incorrect because Rantissi was “taking active part in the hostilities.” Art 4 is irrelevant because Rantissi was not in the hands of the Israelis, as the article specifies. Note that it takes care to say that the individual is “in the hands of…the Occupying Power”, i.e. not that they are governed by it, but that they are specifically being held by it.
Excuse me, but my impression of war means there is killing on both sides.
Anyway, as a long term strategy the killing of terrorist leaders is an effective one. Killing just the footsoldiers would just result in more fodder moving in to replace them. Now, targeting terrorist leaders would likely set the org back on it’s heels for a while, not to say demoralize the rank and file as well. The targeting has to be relentless to be effective over the long run, whatever that may be.
Well, to put it bluntly, yes!.
There’s a war going on here. It’s not between armies; it hasn’t been “declared”; yet a war it is. In a war, each side’s aim is exactly to be the side doing most of the killing.
You think I wouldn’t rather play a footbal game against them? OF course I would. But right now it’s war, so we’re behaving as though it were one.
A few other points, fired at random back at previous contributions:
If Hamas are capable of taking out an Israeli leader… why “if”? Anyone remember the killing of Rehavam (“Gahndi”) Zeevi a few years back? So it isn’t as though they haven’t been trying. Their batting average is just a lot lower, and I hope it stays that way. And if they do manage to get Sharon, as someone above seemed to imply might be a good idea (or at least poetic justice of some sort), I just hope whoever likes the idea has measures in place to stop Bibi Netanyahu from inheriting him…
Geneva Convention - see the bit above about this being a de facto war situation. While Israel may well be in technical contradiction of the GC, I really don’t think we’re in contradiction of the basic moral underpinning of it - which is: Avoid hurting non-combatants (or no-longer-combatants) as much as possible.
Actually to address the OP - as others have stated more eloquently than me, the promised revenge for Yassin has so far failed to materialize. AND it isn’t like they weren’t trying for a “Mega-Attack” anyway… so it seems to be working.
Kill their leaders Vs. get out - the idea is to do both. Sharon aims to get out of Gaza, but after dealing Hamas such a blow that they won’t be able to claim “victory over the Zionist enemy” when we do get out. So the two channels of action are inseperable.
I’m sure I’ve missed some other points along the way - I just got back from a 10-day vacation and wading through 45 responses right off the bat is stiff punishment
Come on, Desmostylus, they aren’t admitting the new leader’s name, let alone shouting it from the rooftops like last time. I respect you, but I think your anger is blinding you.
No, when I say “true” I mean “true”. I didn’t deny that Hamas would name a new leader; I just provided evidence for LC’s statement that the next leader would “think twice” before becoming the next leader. Even assuming it is true that Hamas has appointed a new leader – not that I doubt the veracity of “Hamas sources” – that doesn’t refute a-Zahar’s or anybody else’s reluctance to take the position. In any case having to keep his identity a secret makes it a lot more difficult to do PR.
I think it should be conceded that, from a purely pragmatic POV, the policy of assassinating Hamas leaders appears to be working - based on the evidence. As opposed to earlier near-universal predictions, I don’t hear evidence that numbers and violence of terrorist attacks has increased.
It has angered the Arab world, to a rousing chorus of yawns in Israel (who correctly I think believe that the Arab world is quite willing to fight Israel ‘to the last Palistinian’); Eurogovernments have condemned it - to the same reaction.
Hamas leaders have been driven underground - it seems, contrary to earlier reports, that they don’t actually “embrace martyrdom” or have unlimited replacements, but would prefer to live in hiding.
Of course, it is entirely possible that Hamas will carry out a terrible killing spree in the near future. So far (crossing fingers) they appear unable or unwilling to actually do it - and thus has evaporated much of their credible threat.
Certainly, the most notable post-assassination response last time was not exactly an inspiring example of glorious resistance - i.e., wiring up a mentally challenged teenager with a bomb. Where were all those hundreds of scarey-looking masked militants with AK-47’s, that paraded so threateningly at the leader’s funeral?
So far, a short-term pragmatic win, according to the actual evidence. Naturally, it is impossible to know whether it will be a long-term loss; and the morality of such assasinations is a quite seperate issue.
And we didn’t have 800 dead US soldiers in Iraq the first month after Bush declared and “end to hostilities” either. The response may not be immediate, but it would be foolish to think that it’s therefore not coming.
On the other hand, it is also foolish to ignore positive evidence in favour of a pre-conceived negative opinion.
Only time will tell if these acts were, pragmatically, positive or not from a long-term POV. The immediate effect appears positive, based on the actual evidence.
The Bush invasion is not a good analogy - because that is a different issue: namely, whether or not it is a good idea to physically occupy the territory of one’s enemy in the ME. The Israeli answer appears to be “no”, seeing as they intend to leave Gaza and the WB.
It is too early to assess positive or negative impacts in a meaningful way. For one thinfg heavy Israeli security activity aside from the assassinations may have rather more to do with Hamas’ quiescense as anything else.
Anyway I am on record as saying:
I am ambivalent and will likely remain so about the policy of assassination in this context. I can make a convincing argument to myself from either side.
That aside, IMHO Yassin’s assassination was a tactical error. Whether anything comes of it or not, I think that making the call in the first place promised to little benefit against the potential harm. And yes I do believe Israel needs to be concerned by international reaction - they don’t live in a vacume and yes, relations with the Arabs can get worse. We’ll see where things end up, but I stand by my initial call on that.
However, if you are going to assassinate someone, Rantissi was probably the guy to hit. The potential positives are higher, the potential negatives lower.
There shouldn’t be a “3” before that statement - I hadn’t been on record with that ;). Also, I meant relative positives and negatives compared to assassinating Yassin. Or in other words, if Israel was going to assassinate someone, it would have been better if they had hit Rantissi in the first place and never hit Yassin at all. IMO.
