To listen to much of the commentary from world leaders and American editorial pages this week, Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was a crime that would set back the cause of Mideast peace. But the truth is, the three missiles fired from Israeli helicopters that ended Yassin’s life was merely a case of belated justice.
Yassin was a 67-year-old quadriplegic, a fact that aroused sympathy for him, as well as revulsion against Israel’s actions from many. Far from being a victim, Yassin was the most important leader of a movement that has killed hundreds of Jews in cold blood. He was the Palestinian idealogue of mass murder who bore responsibility for countless crimes committed by others in the name of the radical Islam he championed for decades from the confines of his much photographed wheeled perch.
Given the misleading language that is often used by the media to characterize Hamas, it is probably not surprising that Yassin’s death would be the cause of so much pointless criticism. Though it has taken on a quasi-governmental role in Gaza, Hamas is neither the religious nor social-service agency it is often described as.
The Washington Post editorialized on March 23 that Yassin’s killing puts off the day when Hamas will morph into a peaceful Islamic group. This is a farcical notion. Hamas is already a movement with a clear purpose – the destruction of Israel by armed force, the expulsion and/or murder of its Jewish population and the establishment of a radical Islamist state over the territory that would remain, including areas under the administration of the Palestinian Authority. The idea that Yassin was a force for moderation within Hamas is equally comical. Hamas was and is a group without a ‘moderate’ wing even by the distorted and violent standards of Palestinian society.
While it might still be possible for some to pretend that Palestinian Authority leader Yassir Arafat’s Fatah movement is a peace partner, no sane or honest person can harbor the same illusion about Hamas. As such, Israel not only had the right to pursue Yassin, it was duty-bound to track down him – and every other active member of Hamas – just like the United States hunts down members of the equally despicable Al Qaeda.
There will be many who will seize upon the successful dispatch of Yassin and see it as an understandable rationale for future Hamas terror. But to accept this premise is to fall into the trap of blaming the victim – Israel – for having the temerity to defend itself.
Like all previous Israeli acts of self-defense, this latest one is not part of a mythical ‘cycle of violence’ that Israel is helping to perpetuate. Neither this incident nor the deaths of any of
Yassin’s henchmen was the motivation for any past or future terrorist attacks. Hamas’s murderous rampages are based in its belief system, not on any individual act of Israel. The only driving force behind Palestinian terrorism is Arab rejection of the right of the Jews to live in peace and sovereignty in their own homeland.
Some in Israel will question the wisdom of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his decision to launch an attack on Yassin now that he’s announced a plan for withdrawal from Gaza. They question whether the cost of Yassin’s death to Israel will be worth it. I don’t know the answer to that question. But let there be no doubt as to the justice of this act, or that foreign criticism of Yassin’s killing is rank hypocrisy.
History will deliver its own verdict on Sharon’s judgment. But despite the culture of appeasement of Islamic terror that reigns in Europe and the rise of international anti-Semitism, Yassin’s death proves again that as long as a Jewish state exists, it’s no longer possible to murder Jews with impunity. And for that point alone, Sharon will deserve credit.