Veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery, who heads “Gush Shalom” (‘the Peace Bloc’) commented on his government’s assassination of Hamas spiritual guide Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as follows:
- “This is worse than a crime, it is an act of stupidity! … This is the beginning of a new chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It moves the conflict from the level of a solvable national conflict to the level of religious conflict, which by its very nature is insoluble.
“The fate of the State of Israel is now in the hands of group of persons whose outlook is primitive and whose perceptions are retarded. They are incapable of understanding the mental, emotional and political dimensions of the conflict. This is a group of bankrupt political and military leaders who have failed in all their actions. They try to cover up their failures by a catastrophic escalation.
“This act will not only endanger the personal security of every Israeli,
both in the country and around the world, but also the existential security
of the State of Israel. It has grievously hurt the chances of putting and end
to the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Muslim conflicts.”
Avnery mentioned that in the early 1980s the occupation authorities
encouraged the founders of Hamas, hoping that they would create a
counter-weight to Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Even after the start of the
first intifada, the army and the security services gave preferential treatment
of Hamas. Sheikh Yassin was arrested only a year after the outbreak.
“There seems to be no limit to the stupidity of our political and military
leaders. They endanger the future of the State of Israel.”
Here is the English-language section of Gush Shalom’s website.
Wellll… maybe. More likely, the assassination was the same type of exercise in political theater as the Ashdod bombing – a bid to spin the unilateral withdrawal as a victory for one side. Ashdod was an attempt to make the withdrawal look like a retreat under pressure; the Yassin assassination was an attempt to make it look like Israel will finish the job before leaving. Expect more of the same from both sides in the next few months.
I doubt there will be much long-term effect, though, Avnery’s arguments notwithstanding. Hamas has other leaders, so the assassination won’t help Israel in the long term – but on the other hand, the Palestinians already have plenty of martyrs, and the incremental inflammatory effect of another one won’t be great. Once the withdrawal actually happens, another logic will take the place of the current mutual escalation.
Road Map To Peace
Yassin was old and deaf and blind;
they said he was the deadly kind.
So in self-defense strategic
they blew up a quadriplegic.
Ode to a martyr (forgive the meter)
His accomplishments well known and documented
Dead Israelis, Three hundred and seventy seven
From the response of the liberal media
You’d think he has a one-way ticket to heaven
He blew up discos, pizza joints and buses
Passover seders, restaurants and bar mitzvahs
Killed oldies, youngies, babies and mothers
Fathers, brothers and sisters.
His legacy leaves two thousand Jews wounded
Thousands of families in dispair
Yet all the liberal media cares about
Is that he was still sitting in his chair
Although looking like a diabolical Santa
His temperament was somewhat more pissy
According to news, the new head killer of Jews
Will be the pediatrician of death – Rantisi
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