Flora Lewis - International Herald Tribune 12 gennaio 2001
Israeli officials have now publicly acknowledged a policy of "targeted attacks" on Palestinians believed to be involved in terrorism. These are planned assassinations, quite rightly called "criminal acts ... murder" by Moshe Neghi, a respected Israeli journalist, and denounced by Israeli peaceniks.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said on the radio that the policy was unequivocal. "If anyone has committed or is planning to carry out terrorist attacks, he has to be hit. ... It is effective, precise and just."
The government gives no details. Some Israeli peace activists say there have been eight or nine of these killings. Some Palestinians say the figure so far is 20 or 30. It is not known who gives the order - the chief of intelligence, the secret police, the defense minister, the prime minister? In any case, there is no kind of judicial process, no charge and no defense.
This is the latest revelation of the damage that the festering war with the Palestinians has done to Israel, and the division it is imposing on its people.
For reasons of moral conviction, Israeli criminal justice has no death penalty. The only exception was Adolf Eichmann, the planner and organizer of Nazi death camps, after a long and well publicized trial.
There is no way to reconcile this policy of deliberate official murder, without appeal and unaccountable, with Israel's founding principles of democracy and rule of law.
Palestinian killings, whether random terrorism or premeditaded vengeance, are equally despicable, but in no way can they justify Israelis' violation of their own laws, their own sense of a moral society.
It shows how very badly the Jewish state has come to suffer from its interminable fight with the other people who claim the same land, how much it has to lose by refusing to compromise.
This policy shows what sort of development might be expected if Ariel Sharon wins election as prime minister on Feb. 6, as polls indicate is likely.
Mr. Sharon is probably right when he argues that the current violence was provoked by the fear of diehards (but on each side) of an unacceptable peace after Camp David. But he is certainly wrong that a relatively calm status quo can be restored by abandoning the idea of a permanent settlement in the foreseeable future. The Palestinians are not going to sit back and wait, and Israeli force, all the more under his ruthless intransigence, will escalate the violence.
Already in 1996, Israeli intelligence assassinated a Palestinian bomb expert known as "The Engineer" by booby trapping his mobile phone. That did not stir any particular sense of shame on the Israeli side because the man was seen as a dangerous enemy.
What has sparked a new outrage, at least among a quite limited group of peace activists, is the killing of Thabet Thabet, a middle-aged dentist, by Israeli soldiers using long-range machine guns as he left his home on New Year's Eve. He was well-known to Israelis trying to promote reconciliation with Palestinians, but the military considered him a terrorist.
His widow has filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court to rule that such "orders to execute people without trial" are illegal. Is it naive, an appeal of desperation or a propaganda maneuver to expose Israeli hypocrisy? In any case, it is important to bring before the public this conflict of how Israelis see their issues of security and justice.
According to the Washington Post correspondent Keith Richburg, the policy was expanded to target planners of violence when the attempt to pick off known troublemakers from amid crowds of stone-throwers led to criticism for excessive force, including killing children. Nor did the ensuing policy of attacking Palestinian police and official buildings with helicopter missiles have the desired effect.
Whatever it does to Israel's image in the world, this assassination policy is obviously not going to inspire thoughts of peace or new submission among Palestinians. And it can only undermine Israelis' confidence in their own righteousness.
President Bill Clinton has been trying with all the wit and wile at his command to press for the beginning of an agreement at least so as to revive some hope for the embattled populations. He will probably fail, which won't hurt him; he has done his best. But it is frightening to contemplate what lies ahead in this region. The poison is virulent.
Copyright 2001 International Herald Tribune