Once again, European leaders condemn Israel for killing terrorists. What a joke.
He might be right that they’re counterproductive, but unlawful? This is disgusting, and an obvious double standard against Israel.
Like the the thread I made after Yassin’s death, I ask, would European leaders condemn the United States for assassinating Osama?
Would they call it unlawful and unjustified?
Maybe if Osama breaks his legs and goes to medical school he’ll get a free pass.
bin Laden is in hiding in a unpopulated, inhospitable, and yet-to-be-surveyed range of mountains, and is surrounded by heavily armed men.
Yassin was walking out of a mosque in Gaza.
It isn’t as if he couldn’t have been arrested and tried.
Besides, John Negroponte (US Ambassador to the UN) called the killing “deeply troubling to the USA”. Presumably you should be pitting the Administration too.
It’s not like if we found Osama we couldn’t send in hordes of men to their death just to try to get him alive, right? And risk losing him?
I mean, that’s what you wish for, right? The death of soldiers for absolutely no reason.
Deeply troubling = “oh shit, this conflict could escalate” != “this is unlawful”
agd: This is disgusting, and an obvious double standard against Israel.
You may not like the fact that extrajudicial killings are against international law (even for enemy leaders in wartime), but it’s silly to try to frame it as a specific “double standard” against Israel. As this Jurist article on the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein makes clear, there is nothing new about condemning assassinations as illegal (and official US policy supports that condemnation):
That URL doesn’t work. Were Uday and Qusay’s killings also illegal? Did Britain condemn us?
Once again the European leaders are correct. Israel’s policy of summary execution violates international law. Not only that, it is disgusting. If the Mossad’s intellignece on Hamas is so wonderful then the Israeli’s must be aware of these leaders’ locations much of the time (unlike the USA with bin Laden). They should go in an arrest the guy, rather than play judge, jury and executioner.
If the USA were to simply kill bin Laden instead of trying to arrest him, they too would be wrong. Just as they were in the case of the Hussein brothers.
No, fucktard.
YOU are comparing bin Laden and Yassin. I am pointing out that theirs are entirely different scenarios. I would hardly expect us to unnecessarily send men into an entrenched fortification to dig out bin Laden without killing him, were there a risk of casualties or of him escaping.
Yassin was a 67 year old man in a wheelchair; arresting him would hardly have cost lives.
I don’t know. Was he always alone? No one around who may want to prove his mettle by defending him?
Haha. You ignoramus. Well, I’m done debating with you…
Yassin wasn’t a poor, disabled Floridian retiree; he was the spiritual leader of Hamas. He was well loved, not just by Hamas, and well guarded. To say that Israeli personnel could have so much as walked into the area without having rocks thrown at them is ignorance.
Wouldn’t putting Rantisi on trial have led to more attacks in an effort to free him?
Rantisi was an asshole who got what he deserved.
You accuse me of wanting the deaths of soldiers for absolutely no reason, and then suggest that you were attempting to debate me? Call me an ignoramus, no less.
The irony is delicious.
Yassin had three bodyguards, all of whom were in his car. I’m not suggesting that a couple of Israeli police officers should have pulled him over and tried to arrest him.
I’m suggesting that Israel could at least have tried to arrest him, rather than simply sending in a gunship.
Yassin had been arrested without a struggle at least twice before. He was released from his last detention in 1997. None of the Israeli press releases regarding the killing make reference to any attempt to have Yassin stand trial. No reference was made to any kind of legal justification for the operation. The IDF and Foreign Ministry both referred to it as a “targeted killing”.
I should add, THAT is flat-out wrong. The US did not vote for the UN resolution condemning Yassin’s assassination purely because it was not worded as to also contain a condemnation of HAMAS.
Well, you’ve really let those people who were saying that "deeply troubling = “this is unlawful” have it.
Who were they again? And where did you read their assertion?
Considering that I am pitting people who are calling this unlawful (my position being clear here: “He might be right that they’re counterproductive, but unlawful?”), why else would Mr. Not All That Bright suggest I pit the administration?
So a suicide mission, and then missile attack? Israel couldn’t go into the area without people having their guns at the ready, let alone getting near Yassin. The man wasn’t George Clooney loved; plenty of people would have laid down their lives to defend him. If watching the news footage after the assassination didn’t show you this (i’m assuming you did; apologies if not), then take it from the guy who is acquainted-with-someone-who-is-a-close-relative-of-a-student-of-his.
See my previous post.
Well done. You managed not to quote the part of my post which points out that HE’S BEEN ARRESTED BEFORE WITHOUT A STRUGGLE.
I didn’t notice this the first time through. You make it sound as though Britain has never had a problem with terrorism. I can assure you it has, and for even longer than the Israelis.
However, successive UK governments managed to fight the IRA and associated paramilitary organizations without assassinating anyone. Don’t tell me “it was different, because they weren’t blowing people up in England, Scotland, or Wales”, because they certainly were. My brother escaped the Canary Wharf bombing by the skin of his teeth.
Now: show me your obvious double standard.
Fuck Yassin, wheelchair and all, fuck Rantisi, and FUCK HAMAS. After they arranged and condoned suicide bombings, their deaths can not possibly come soon enough.