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An Assassination in Gaza 03/24/04 On Monday night as most Americans slept comfortably in their beds, our tax dollars again went into action in occupied Palestine. Around 5am Gaza time the spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (otherwise known as Hamas) was assassinated by a US made/supplied Israeli helicopter gunship firing three US tax payer funded shrapnel packed missiles. Sheik Ahmad Yassin, a 67 year nearly deaf and blind paralyzed quadriplegic in a wheelchair was killed instantly along with six of his bodyguards and a number of bystanders who rushed to his aid. Yassin, a founding member of Hamas and its spiritual (religious) leader (not part of the military wing) was mourned throughout the world with over 200,000 people attending his funeral in Gaza City. Demonstrations also flared worldwide as almost every international leader condemned the attack. Kofi Annan (the Secretary General of the UN) called the extra-judicial assassination “illegal under international law” and Jack Straw (the British foreign secretary) called it “unacceptable”. Hosni Mubarak (president of Egypt) cancelled an Egyptian diplomatic trip to celebrate 25 years of peace between Egypt and Israel, and Kind Abdullah (King of Jordan) was visibly shaken, having met with Sharon only the week before. The US appointed Iraqi governing council expressed their support of the Palestinian people, and the Grand Ayatollah Sistani condemned the attack. The United States, Israel’s strongest ally and arms supplier, “appealed for calm on all sides” and urged Israel to recognize the consequences of their actions, considered to be a strong rebuke from the rabidly Pro-Israeli Bush administration.
First and foremost it needs to be mentioned that Yassin was the founder of a group (Hamas) which advocated and conducted the killing of civilians. While this fact is mentioned throughout the news coverage of the assassination, what is rarely mentioned is that Hamas, like most resistance groups in Palestine and elsewhere has both a military and a political wing that function independently of each other. Hamas’ political wing provides numerous services to the Palestinian people suffering under a 36 year military occupation including food, schooling, and healthcare. Yassin was a spiritual leader, a religious cleric who could never and has never committed a violent act against Israel. At most Yassin was an “inspiration” for Hamas military leaders and cadres. It is impossible to claim that the disabled, old, religious leader, whose main activity was to commute the 300 yards from his modest home to his mosque five times a day for prayers was a military commander, or even espoused military tactics. In fact the Israeli government doesn’t even claim he was a planner of attacks against Israeli’s, merely that he was assassinated because he was the religious motivation behind suicide attacks in Israel.
It should be noted that the Israeli assassination of Sheik Yassin was in everyway a cowardly operation. Yassin, as a spiritual leader, did not go underground like the Hamas military commanders and in fact maintained nearly the same schedule everyday. Five times a day he was wheeled from his home to mosque to pray, and that is where he was assassinated, leaving his mosque for morning prayers. Extra-judicial assassinations are, as Kofi Annan rightly pointed out, illegal under international law. As an occupying military power Israel has the responsibility of arresting, and trying anyone suspected of committing a crime in the territories it occupies. Israel has done this before, trying Yassin for “ordering the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers” and sent him to jail. (He was released in exchange for two Mossad agents captured in Jordan during a botched assassination attempt on another Hamas leader) Israel could have easily captured Yassin (they obviously knew where he was, and have made hundreds of incursions into the Gaza Strip to arrest militants before) tried him, presented evidence as to his guilt, and put him in jail. Instead they chose to fire missiles at him, killing not only him, but six bodyguards who were never charged of any “crime” against Israel, and a number of bystanders who had probably never been out of the Gaza Strip let alone committed any “crime” against Israel.
Sheik Yassin has now become a martyr in the eyes of millions worldwide, and a new rallying point for resistance to the occupation inside the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel has now managed to turn a paralyzed old religious leader into a new national symbol of Palestinian resistance. In addition this assassination will massively increase Hamas’ support, and result in the deaths of hundreds of Israelis in revenge attacks. According to a Hamas spokesman in the West Bank, in just the one day since the assassination of Yassin over 20 people have come to him offering to be suicide bombers. I am not sure how Israel believes that by assassinating Yassin they will decrease terror attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel. Conventional wisdom suggests that assassinating the spiritual leader while leaving the military structure intact will add rage, determination, and recruits to Hamas’ retaliation against Israel. Sharon has shown (again) that he is willing to gamble Israeli lives for political goals. Sharon wants to prove that he is not withdrawing from the Gaza Strip (as part of his “disengagement” plans) under pressure from Palestinian resistance groups. To do this he needed a spectacular military operation, (the assassination of Yassin) without any regard for the consequences it would have on the Israeli people. Israel asserts that Yassin will be irreplaceable to Hamas and hinder the military response and future actions against Israel. What Israel fails to realize (and has for a long time) is that in a situation of oppression and occupation new leaders will be plentiful, and will always appear to take the place of fallen leaders. Israel has been extra-judiciously assassinating Palestinian leaders for upwards of 40 years (Abu Jihad, Ghassan Kanafani, Abu Ali Mustafa, among many others) yet their places are always filled by new recruits moving up through the organizations. The lesson Israel needs to learn is that as long as the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people continues, assassinating leaders will not hinder resistance groups, only ensure that they become martyrs for a community entrenched in resistance.
Israel’s judgment in the occupied territories has never been good, just, or even legal. They have managed to “confuse” (in their words) over 2,000 Palestinian civilians (unarmed) with “militants”, 7 journalists with “gunmen”, 4 UN aid workers with “terrorists”, and 2 peace workers “fighters” just in the past three years. However this decision to assassinate Sheik Yassin is the height of bad judgment. As a result of this insane and illogical act hundreds of people, both Israeli and Palestinian are bound to die, and the peace process may be completely dead. (As per Sharon’s wish) All this because Ariel Sharon and his right wing fanatic supporters in the Israeli Knesset wanted to prove a political point.
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