Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

Sheikh Yassin

March 22, 2004

Yes the man was despicable. He was the moral force behind the Hamas suicide bombers, and I can’t pretend that I have any regrets over his death. Equally the line on Channel 4 News, where the words “wheelchair-bound” and “spiritual leader” featured frequently, was nauseating. When the Israeli spokesman in Jerusalem responded to Jon Snow’s outrage by citing some of the atrocities for which Yassin bore responsibility, it was something that needed saying. But when the man went on to say that, now, at last, Israeli citizens could go about their lives more peacefully, he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Maybe Israel has become so hardened by its experience that it no longer cares about world opinion, but as well as a struggle for survival there’s the struggle for the moral high ground, and from that point of view Israel has shot itself in the foot here. So although I can appreciate what Oliver Kamm is saying here, I still have to disagree with his verdict that Jack Straw was being facile in his remarks, quoted here by the BBC:

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the assassination of Sheikh Yassin as “unacceptable” and “unjustified”.

Mr Straw said he did not think Israel would benefit from an attack on an old man in a wheelchair.

World opinion of Israel will have sunk even lower now. We may say that world opinion is foolish, even that it’s tainted with anti-semitism, but it does nevertheless matter.

Justice may have been done, but I don’t believe that this has made Israel safer. Nor has it made it any easier for those of us who support Israel to argue its case in future.

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13 responses to “Sheikh Yassin”

Dave

March 23, 2004

We have to convince the world that destroying terrorist organizations is the right thing to do. If they’re not willing to accept that, then I don’t particularly care what they think.
At the very least, there is a double-standard. If it had been Osama, nobody would have complained.

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Mike Hill

March 23, 2004

I understand that acts like this are difficult to justify. And its difficult to see how it can lead towards peace. But what would you have Israel do? This vaporized sheik dedicated his life to killing jews. He had the means and the organization to indulge his life’s work. And the world considered him a spiritual leader. If I was Israel I would indeed have ceased to care what the world thought long ago.
Imagine that the Palestinians woke up one day and said, “We fight no longer. From this day on, no matter what Israel does we put away our weapons.” I think that they would have their own state, diplomatically speaking, instantly. If Israel woke up one day and made the same vow, well, I imagine every jew would be dead within a few days.
These are hard decisions made by a hardened people. I wish I could come up with a better plan. But what are they to do?

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tony h

March 23, 2004

I agree with Mick here. It’s hard to see how this makes Israel safer. If this guy was so dangerous why did Nethanyahu release him from custody in exchange for a couple of Mossad agents a few years ago? Why were so many members of the Israeli cabinet against this action? Comparisons with OBL are fatuous. Al-Qaeda is not an organisation one can negotiate with unless you are prepared to accept the prospect of an Islamic fundamentalist global empire.
Hamas’s suicide bombing strategy is loathesome and its religious messianism deeply troubling but the organisation is borne of a very specific set of historical injustices. More significantly it has budged in recent months on the question of political demands. They now are willing to entertain the notion of a two state solution. Ok, Israelis should hardly be falling over themselves in gratitude but this represented progress of a sort–progress now gravely undermined as a consequence of Sharon’s desire for a short term largely symbolic victory.

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Anthony

March 23, 2004

Hamas are not interested in a two state solution, here’s Yassin in his own words.

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anthony

March 23, 2004

http://www.blacktriangle.org.uk/blog/archives/000643.html

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Solomon

March 23, 2004

I understand the spirit and the concerns embodied by this post, but the fact is that “World Opinion” hasn’t really counted for very much at all over the years from Israel’s perspective, has it? Worrying over world opinion has kept this low-level conflict going long after Israel could have and should have pursued its own desired conclusions. Where is world opinion while Israeli children are being blown up on busses, and Palestinian Arab society is being mulched by monsters like Yassin?
No, Israel did what it had to do, and one should look to Israeli opinion, rather than the world’s which carries little moral weight on this conflict. In Israel, as I understand it, this was very popular.
I’m with that. This is, instead, an opportunity for people who understand why this was necessary to point out to the “world” why they are wrong. “World Opinion” in this case really represents the opinions of politicians and media elites. Average people can easily understand what Israel has done if given the chance. We should be doing what we can to help them understand, not taking the wrong side in order to win a popularity contest while people are dieing – no thanks to Jack Straw.

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Solomon

March 23, 2004

BTW, I should also add that it is always easier to argue the case of someone who is willing to argue the case for themselves. Don’t stick up for yourself, don’t behave in the way that you think is right, and, well, that’s where you are and that’s where you’ll stay. Do what you think is right and you give your supporters something to rally around. Israel to date has given us very little to rally around. Hopefully that will change, and they will find they have and attract more supporters than they think.
I realize this may not be that coherent or complete, sorry about that, but I’m just getting to my morning coffee… 😉

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Eve Garrard

March 23, 2004

Mick, why do you think Israel has lost the moral high ground, as opposed to the public relations high ground, by assassinating Yassin? As the Hamas website indicates, Yassin devoted his time to arranging the murder of Israelis, with a view to destroying the state of Israel. Why do you think it’s immoral for Israel to prevent him doing more of that? (That’s not a rhetorical question, I’d really like to know.)

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Clay

March 23, 2004

This–“Mr Straw said he did not think Israel would benefit from an attack on an old man in a wheelchair”–is surely facile. Yassin was not my grandfather playing chess in a retirement home, he was the fanatical leader of a murderous terrorist movement. Would Straw have said the same thing if Yassin had held the detonation switch to a string of bombs set to kill a thousand or more Londoners? The old man in the wheelchair could have stopped the last 15 years’ carnage as easily as he authorized it.

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Mick H

March 23, 2004

Eve – I don’t think it’s immoral for Israel to have assassinated the man: as I said in my post, justice may well have been done. As for losing the moral high ground, I take your (implied) point, that we’re talking more of public relations high ground here. I was interested in the Allison Kaplan Sommer article (http://allisonkaplansommer.blogmosis.com/history/023486.html#023486) where she presented the position of the Israeli man-in-the-street as one of having nothing left to lose, that it couldn’t get any worse anyway. But it can get worse, and public relations is not trivial. It seems to me to make little sense to murder Yassin in the teeth of inevitable reaction round the world, when the likelihood is that things will indeed get worse as a result.
My post wasn’t meant to be condemnatory of Israel. I fully understand what a despicable piece of work Yassin was (well, insofar as someone outside Israel, and not subject to Hamas bombings, can understand). I hope I’m wrong about things getting worse.

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Eve Garrard

March 23, 2004

Thanks Mick – I’m sure you’re right, that things can get worse. But it’s very difficult to know exactly what makes them worse. There’s a piece by Bret Stephens (editor of the Jerusalem Post) in the Wall St Journal today (I don’t know how to get it online, doubtless others do) arguing that the figures show that the killing declines when Israel takes a tough line, and that we shouldn’t be surprised at this, since Palestinian terrorists and their supporters are rational agents. Israel is a public relations disaster area, of course, but again it’s hard to know what’s causing that. Her treatment in parts of the liberal media suggests that some reporters and commentators bring outrageous double standards to bear on their coverage of Israel, and I’m not sure that such covert hostility is likely to be assuaged by Israel adopting dovish behaviour (or anything else, for that matter).

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Anthony

March 25, 2004

This is the Bret Stephens article Eve referred to:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004855
It is important to note that it appears that both Israeli and Palestinian deaths fall as a result of tougher Israeli action on terror groups.

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Mick H

March 25, 2004

Thanks for that Anthony. I’ll admit he makes a compelling case.

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