In The

World condemns "assassinations," but Israelis see them as justified.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

A

lmost universally condemned
abroad, Israel's policy of target-
ing suspected Palestinian ter-
rorists is drawing widespread
support at home — though its efficacy is
still up for debate.
Even Washington, Israel's closest ally,
sharply criticized Jerusalem for a helicopter
attack last week that killed a top Hamas
leader in Nablus. Two boys who happened
to be passing by the building as missiles
slammed through the third-floor windows
of the Hamas offices also were killed.
Inside Israel, however, government policy
and army actions enjoy broad approval despite
some doubts over whether the policy — what
Israeli officials call "targeted preventive meas-
ures" and which most of the world condemns
as "assassinations"
really is effective.
The operation in Nablus, for instance,
was criticized by opposition leader Yossi
Sarid as carrying too high a risk of collater-
al casualties. But even Sarid agreed that the
senior Hamas official killed in the attack,
Jamil Mansour, should have been "marked
to die" as far as Israel was concerned.
And U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney
told Fox News last week that Israel might
have "some justification" for the killings if
they prevented attacks on Israelis.

—

Internal Support

Many Israelis, in fact, note the apparent dis-
array in Palestinian ranks the killings have
caused. Some say Israel's recent success in
foiling so many Palestinian terror attacks
stems from the fact that the targeted killings
have hampered the terrorist organizations,
forcing them to send out novices with hap-
hazardly prepared weapons.
Even in Hakretz, the most liberal of the
Israeli newspapers, commentators such as
Dan Margalit and Yoel Marcus have laud-
ed the Israel Defense Force actions.
"The policy of assassinations" Marcus

8/10

2001

18

wrote, "is an interim one ... It intensifies
pinpoint attacks, but does not pull out all
the stops, and does not close the door to
negotiations. In the varied menu of escala-
tion possibilities, the policy of assassina-
tions is the least of all evils."
Among the leading politicians of the left,
only Yossi Beilin, justice minister in the for-
mer Labor government, consistently has
opposed the policy. Apart from the ethical
problem of a government ordering a pre-
meditated killing without judge or jury,
Beilin argues, the mount-
ing toll of Palestinian
activists eliminated in
this way — more than
40 in recent months —
carries with it the
prospect of Palestinian
reprisals.
Indeed, the
Palestinian Authority
recently prepared a list
of 50 Israeli "extremists"
Yossi Berlin
it wants arrested, saying
it will begin assassinating them if Israel
does not crack down.
Palestinians and other Arabs also have put
prices on the heads of Israel's Ashkenazi

chief rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, and Shas
leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and death
threats have been made against Sharon and
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Moreover, Beilin contends, Israel's poli-
cy makes it impossible for Palestinian
Authority leader Yasser Arafat to crack
down on militant groups such as Hamas
and Islamic Jihad.
The targeted killings only serve to radi-
calize the Palestinian public, Beilin says.
Pressure from an inflamed Palestinian
public then makes it too dangerous for
Arafat to face down the groups by arrest-
ing — in many cases rearresting — men
on Israel's most-wanted list.
Even without the killings, however,
there is scant evidence that Arafat would
contemplate a major effort against the
fundamentalist groups. And the logic
cited by government officials is precisely

Carrying the portraits of
from right to left, Osman Qatnani,
Omar Mansour and Fahim Dawabshe,
thousands of mourners accompany the
bodies of eight Palestinians during
their funeral procession through
the streets of the West Bank town
of Nablus on Aug. 1. The three
were among the eight killed
in an Israeli helicopter
attack on a Hamas o ice.

