www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-horowitz091001.shtml
Hardball, Mideast-Style
Liquidation as a political tool.
By Ami Horowitz, a freelance writer in New York.
September 10, 2001 3:20 p.m.
This past week five bombs exploded across population centers in Jerusalem. Israel responded by rocketing a convoy of known terrorists, killing two of the three intended targets. Israel has been attacked from nearly every quarter regarding this response to the savage terrorism which the Palestinians are perpetrating upon the Israeli populace. Even the United States, by every account Israel's best friend, has joined in the chorus, albeit not directly, by blindly repeating the same mantra of moral equivalence, "violence by both sides," and "cycle of violence." Such morally damaging phrases fail at capturing the truth of what is happening in Israel, which is that the Israeli response of targeting terrorists and destroying Palestinian military infrastructure (when they are empty) is laughable comparable to the Palestinian butchery on Israeli civilians using suicide bombers.
The Israeli practice of liquidation, preemptive targeting, or assassination, call it what you will, is an effective tool against the Palestinian attacks. In fact it is an extremely moral response to a strategy that is anything but. Israel's goal is to eliminate the middle tier of Palestinian leaders, who are recruiting, training, and directing the cadre of suicide bombers that are essentially holding Israeli society hostage. It is important to unmask exactly who is being targeted by Israel and not to be led by the Palestinian propaganda machine, which exclaims that Israel is targeting political leaders. Politics and terrorism are inexorably intertwined in Palestinian society.
Mahmoud Karmi, one of the targets, is personally responsible for the killing of six Israelis, of which two were peacenik restaurateurs from Tel Aviv who were kidnapped, tortured, and killed. The last Israeli targeted killing was PFLP commander in the West Bank and Gaza, Ali Zabri. Aside from being one of the most effective terrorist organizations in the 70's and 80's, when it was responsible for the killing of more than a dozen Americans, Zabri has been personally responsible for over half a dozen bombs in Israel this year alone. Israel has made the strategic choice to selectively target these criminals in polished surgical operations, which by and large kill only the intended targets, often time putting Israeli soldiers at risk in order to do so. This avoids the painful process of Israel gearing up its significantly larger and more powerful army and engaging in real combat, which would prove disastrous for the Palestinians.
Israel rarely chooses the military option first. As in this case, Israel has implored Arafat for years to arrest the known terrorists and their handlers, but Arafat has steadfastly refused to make any meaningful effort. Let there be no mistake about it, Arafat has not only refused to take action against the terrorists — he gives them tacit approval. Arafat owns the military infrastructure of the Palestinian people, and he knows exactly who and where the terrorists are. If he possessed the will, he could wipe out the terror cells, particularly because he has no judicial restraints. Arafat chooses not to because the terrorists play a very useful purpose for him. In fact after he makes weak condemnations in English soon after a particularly horrendous attack (almost always done so with pressure from Colin Powell), he follows that with praise for the murderers in Arabic, a very important distinction. The terrorists allow Arafat to inflict an enormous amount of pain on Israel, while giving him the illusion of deniability. The reality is that his address is where the final accountability lies. He bore that responsibility when he shrewdly negotiated quasi-sovereignty over much of the West Bank. He has now forced Israel's hand when it comes to how they can deal with the terrorist threat.
When the State Department attacks Israel's action as being provocative one can not help but wonder at the hypocrisy. The United States has engaged in far more confrontational operations, such as lobbing dozens of cruise missiles into Afghanistan, killing Osama bin Laden's terrorists in training. One of the more morally dubious examples was when U.S helicopters attempted to assassinate Muhammad Adid, and in the process inadvertently killed hundreds of Somali citizens. Even more laughable is the Palestinian claim that the explicit targeting of these terrorists is "extra judicial." This coming from an entity that cultivates the "judicially appropriate" terrorist organizations. Further, the Palestinians have engaged in a systematic "cleansing" of its own population, by arresting and executing hundreds of "collaborators." These collaborators are rounded up by the Palestinian police force and put on show trials, which can last as little as half an hour, with no real defense council. They are then put in jail or summarily publicly executed; it makes the Soviet judicial system look like the Peoples' Court. That is if they are lucky enough to avoid Arafat's roving gangs that simply shoot dead suspected collaborators where they stand.
It is important to understand the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis as a state of war. From Israel's side it is a defensive war, all violence would end the day the Palestinians put down their arms and return to the negotiating table. The Palestinians are not in the least bit interested in this option and they are using whatever weapon they have at their disposal in this fight. The most effective weapon that they possess is the suicide bomber attacking its civilian targets. If they had a military that could rival Israel's they would use such power without an afterthought. Israel is on the other hand morally self-constrained; it chooses not to fight fire with fire. It has therefore devised a very practical and highly ethical way to battle such insidious combat. They simply target the masterminds behind the bombers. Instead of being vilified by the international community Israel should be lauded for its restraint.
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