Do targeted killings contradict Jewish values?
“Israel, unquestionably, has the same right and obligation that all sovereign nations have to ensure the security of its citizens. Hamas, founded by Yassin, is without doubt a terrorist organization that does not recognize the right of Israel to exist on any of historic Palestine. Hamas is Israel’s sworn enemy. […] But the right of self-defense does not automatically justify, morally or pragmatically, a policy of targeted assassination.” — Marcia Freedman, President of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom in j.
I’m probably not the first person to say this, but would Ms. Freedman think it against Jewish values to assissinate Hitler? I hope not.
Yassin was not trying to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He hated all Jews everywhere. If he was capable of it, he would follow Hilter’s example. Hamas wants a Judenrein Middle East for a start and then on to a Judenreing world.
One can certainly argue that it probably will not work, but I think the leadership of Hamas
“He hated all Jews everywhere.”
then why didn’t he attack anyone other than Israelis
re·venge
tr.v. re·venged, re·veng·ing, re·veng·es
1. To inflict punishment in return for (injury or insult).
2. To seek or take vengeance for (oneself or another person); avenge.
n.
1. The act of taking vengeance for injuries or wrongs; retaliation.
2. Something done in vengeance; a retaliatory measure.
3. A desire for revenge; spite or vindictiveness.
4. An opportunity to retaliate, as by a return sports match after a defeat.
self-defense
Pronunciation: “self-di-‘fen(t)s
Function: noun
1 : a plea of justification for the use of force or for homicide
2 : the act of defending oneself, one’s property, or a close relative
Yassin = Hitler.
I think most survivors would take exception to that. I could be wrong, but i find the comparison ill-informed.
Has anyone asked *why* Yassin didn’t believe in Israel’s existance? Did Yassin ever support the mechanised, industrialised, mass-liquidation of all Jews for eternity?
More to the point (and don’t even try to pin me as a Hamas supporter — i am not by any means), has anyone analyzed the tenents and the concepts that drive Hamas?
If you won’t understand your enemy, if the mere discussion makes your eyes flinch in anger, what chance is there ever for peace?
Peace belongs to the reasoned.
.rob adams
yeah susan, come on..we are the people of the book.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm
Screw Hamas and all they stand for, Israel is the only country that has balls. Watch out Europe, you’re in for some shit next. And Babylonian, it’s ok for you as long as Jews in Israel die. I think there’s applications to be Rantissi’s bodyguard, it’s not that hard to be accepted. Just have to be heterosexual(for the 70 virgins) and know how to use a rusty kaleshnikov. Rantissi, I give him a month. At the most…Marcia Freedman of Betzek shalom or whatever, what right does that waste have to say what country shouldnt be allowed to kill a terrorist. She knows nothing except complaining and loving the enemy.
Lou: At least put a little effort into having your sentences make sense.
Rob: Many of the co-founders of the Islamic Brotherhood(which gave birth to Hamas, both ideologically and with financial and logistical support) were X-Nazis: former SS officers, Arab collaborators with the nazis, etc. So the comparison, while not exactly accurate, has some degree of validity.
Babylonian: I’m pretty sure Hamas has killed plenty of people who were not Israelis, but I’m not sure about that. But, in any case, his multiple declarations to kill Jews “wherever they are,” certainly will suffice to prove that he hated JEWS, not just Israelis, whether or not he found it politically feasible to act on that hatred.
Moishe: I’m not exactly sure what point you’re trying to make by posting definitions. I think you are making the mistake of assuming that what you think to be ‘the truth’ is self evident, but it is not. Are you saying that Israel’s actions were a combination of vengeance and self-defense?(a perfectly reasonable argument) I would appreciate clarification, honestly.
Also, the comment in the article, “If, in fact, Yassin was guilty of leading his people in terrorism, Israel certainly has sufficient military force to re-arrest him and put him on trial, or merely hold him under administrative detention without trial (which is legal in Israel as an emergency measure).”
It may be technically true that Israel could have arrested him, but the consequences would have been much worse. He was living in a densely populated area where Israel would have had to blast their way past thousands of Hamas supporters to get to, probably killing dozens if not hundreds of INNOCENT people in the process. Also, considering that all the people who died in the Yassin ‘assassination’ were Hamas members, which are essentially members of a paramilitary group that is in an openly declared state of war with Israel, this is one of the cleanest ‘assassinations’ that Israel has done.
-Ethan
oh come on, ethan. if they could get a chopper in there to launch a missile, they could land it to yank him inside it.
Actually, apprehending/kidnapping Yassin was totally possible. It goes without saying, as we do this all the time with low-level operators. But…
The only argument i heard against such an operation is that the potential for loss of life on our side (and that potential is rather high, given the security surrounding Yassin (or, now, Rantisi)) would negate such an operation. With low-level persons, no such security exists (usually).
And, remember, this man lived as a civilian does — with civilians (e.g., elderly, women and children).
The thing to remember, though, is that military confrontation should have been a last resort. There are far more effective measures that we have, since Rabin, adbandoned. Permanent closure is always an option (although, who!, will clean our toilets and build our houses and discos). We need our economic slaves, in short.
.rob adams
mo1: Sure, and mow down the 50 mosque-goers (most of whom are probably not terrorists) who would have rushed around him. I’m not saying they couldn’t have arrested him, I’m saying that if they had arrested him more people would have died, probably on both sides, in the operation. A missile is much more agile and quick than a helicopter.
Rob: like it or not, the economic subsistence of the West Bank and Gaza is now intricately enmeshed with Israel-proper. “Permanent closure,” might work better to stop terrorism but it would also completely destroy any remnant of functioning society that still exists in the West Bank and Gaza.
in the context of Hamas’ statements, saying they will kill Jews “wherever they are” is a reference to an internal Palestinian debate vs. more moderate groups that advocate only targeting Israeli soldiers within the territories. “Wherever they are” means “within Israel proper,” and “Jews” mostly means “Israelis” in this context. Americans who don’t know any actual Middle Eastern history except the Zionist narrative usually fail to understand this.
well…i read that on the ism web site too..but still, i interpret a jew as a jew.
in interest of further debate, can you define “this context”
The Israelis nailing that hateful cretin Yassin was entirely justified. Targeted assasination is preferable to rolling in the tanks… surely? Those who died were all Hamas terrorists, what is the problem?
by “this context” I mean the Zionist-Arab conflict. If you’ve ever seen any documentaries that extensively interview Palestinians, it’s usually only the upper-class Palestinians who have had higher education who always remember to say “the Israelis” or even “the soldiers” when they’re talking about who makes life difficult for them. Your average Palestinian generally says “the Jews”, as in “we needed to get to Nablus to go to the hospital but the Jews were blocking the road and shooting people,” or “my son was killed by the Jews.” Watching these interviews, I have often felt very pained and wished that they would say “the soldiers” instead of “the Jews.” Sure, when another suicide bomber blows up a bus we don’t say “the Muslims” did it. But things are complicated by the facts that: a) Israel constantly claims that what it is doing, it is doing for the sake of “the Jews”, and b) the only Jews most of these Palestinians know are the soldiers. I don’t think the discourse should stay this way, and I would like to see a shift on the Palestinian side, but as an empirical matter it is simply true that when many of these Palestinians meet other Jews who aren’t soldiers they are confronted with an aporia requiring them to expand their category of Jew, as in “oh, you’re a Jew? But where’s your gun?”
things are complicated by the facts that: a) Israel constantly claims that what it is doing, it is doing for the sake of “the Jews”, and b) the only Jews most of these Palestinians know are the soldiers. Yes. And, of course, c) Palestinians — and the rest of the Arab world — needs to be able to use “Israel” and “the Jews” interchangeably, since rejectionism is based on the equation of Zionism with apartheid and racial theories.
In other words, it’s important for Arabists, by which I mean Arab nationalists who reject the foreign Zionist implantation into the Middle East, to see Israel as exclusively Jewish and Arabs and other non-Jews as utterly excluded from it.
The opposite of which would, of course, be the increasingly-prominent existence of an Israeli identity separate from although linked — how could it not be? — from the Jewish people to which Israel (as a nation-state) has a special responsibility. I’ve argued here that is happening in any case, even if slowed down a whole bunch through Israel’s and Israeli’s reaction to the racist vilification and demonization to which Israel is subject.
But that’s another topic. I mean the Zionist-Arab conflict: interesting. That’s what Benny Morris called it when he was writing his history, because he was talking about Zionists before there was a State of Israel. And that’s the common term for the Arab-Israeli conflict in places where you can’t say Israel because, well, there still is no Israel, just the Zionist entity. But why do you use it in this context?
well, i guess i am still confused as to how i should interperet jew in the covenant of the islamic resistance movement.
“Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people. “May the cowards never sleep.” ”
is that just those other jews too.
No, “rejectionism” on the Palestinian side is not “based on the equation of Zionism with apartheid and other racial theories.” That may be a trope that come columnists or pundits enjoy using, but Palestinian “rejectionism” is primarily based on a refusal to grant that the Zionist movement had a “right” to displace any of them from any of their land, as in the first half of 1948. Perhaps one might argue that they would do well to abandon this refusal in the interests of a compromise, but I think there remains a lacuna in most Zionist thinking on the issue of transfer. The fact is that when the UN Partition Plan came out, Jews were still a minority of the population in Palestine and even in the tiny space they were allotted. So the Zionist movement had to push the Palestinians out of their part of the state and over into the Arab part. The Palestinians “reject” that this was justice. Compromise will need to be made on this point, perhaps.
“it’s important for Arabists . . . to see Israel as exclusively Jewish and Arabs and other non-Jews as utterly excluded from it.”
Replace “Arabists” with “Likudniks” and you have yourself a winning point.
The question of an emergent Israeli identity such as the one you discuss is an interesting one. If you ask me, however, such a thing is not what the current steerers of Israeli policy are looking for. Perhaps they have belatedly realized that it would have been in their interests to treat the “Israeli Arabs” as full citizens beyond the political fact of suffrage; recent efforts to establish a national holiday that has nothing to do with Zionism seem predicated on such a realization. The point is that this sort of thing runs contrary to Zionism, except for certain strains of the utopian ALTNEULAND Zionism of Herzl, which envisioned a state for the Jews which would welcome others as full participants in society and be indistinguishable from his ideal of Enlightenment Vienna.
I used Morris’ terminology, instead of “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict, which is the most common term (and indeed the one I use most of the time). I think that “Zionist-Arab,” though, encompasses the international nature of the conflict and the way that people across the world, from Jews in the U.S. to Arabs in other Arab countries, play roles in it. Also, it contains the way in which this is an ideological conflict. Yes, Hamas doesn’t care if the Israelis they’re blowing up are Zionist, post-Zionist, or just immigrants who came looking for work. And true, one doesn’t label the war in Iraq the “Neoconservative-Iraqi conflict” in order to absolve the Americans who were opposed to it of implication in the conflict. I still think the designation “Zionist” as an actor in the conflict can sometimes carry more information than “Israeli.”
sam: “Wherever they are” means “within Israel proper,” and “Jews” mostly means “Israelis” in this context. Americans who don’t know any actual Middle Eastern history except the Zionist narrative usually fail to understand this.
sam, i’m going to have to counter that one. check out this video clip of a sheikh abu halabayah, of the palestinian authority, sermonizing live from al aqsa on palestinian television.
it’s a slow download, but will definitely force you to reevaluate your position on that point there.
No, “rejectionism” on the Palestinian side is not “based on the equation of Zionism with apartheid and other racial theories.” With respect, I wasn’t talking about “the Palestinian side” but about the wider pan-Arab trope. Palestinian “rejectionism” is primarily based on a refusal to grant that the Zionist movement had a “right” to displace any of them from any of their land. Your mistake here is in turning this into an either-or thing.
It isn’t. Palestinians — and pan-Arab nationalists, and Islamists, and others — utterly rejected a whole series of things. (As it happens, some of these stances I agree with, some of them I don’t. But that’s not at issue here.) In addition, (pan-)Arab rejectionism requires seeing Israel as a racist, apartheid, and exclusively Jewish state. Seeing it as pluralist would be normalization. Normalization is the opposition of rejection.
“it’s important for Arabists . . . to see Israel as exclusively Jewish and Arabs and other non-Jews as utterly excluded from it.” Replace “Arabists” with “Likudniks” and you have yourself a winning point.
Same mistake again. Seeing Israel as the Jewish state and only a Jewish state is both widespread and, ideologically, absolutely necessary in the Arabist discourse. While your analysis of Likud is interesting it, once again, is not really at issue here.
The question of an emergent Israeli identity such as the one you discuss is an interesting one. (…) The point is that this sort of thing runs contrary to Zionism On this, obviously, we disagree. In terms of a progressive political path to the future I wonder what this disagreement means, though I suppose I can guess.
I continue to think that arguing for even more pluralism within Israel would be much more effective than calling for an end to the country. That arguing to change the security barrier’s route as the proper thing to do would have been much more useful than the international campaign of straight-to-the-ICJ (meanwhile, the Israeli Supreme Court challenge was ongoing) and of vilication, along with its hackneyed language of propaganda. But on all this, sure, reasonable people can disagree.
I used Morris’ terminology, instead of “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict, which is the most common term (…) I still think the designation “Zionist” as an actor in the conflict can sometimes carry more information than “Israeli.”
I’d just add that you left out what is also a common — and, to my mind, the most accurate — term, which is to talk of the Arab-Israeli conflict. That’s not simply because it’s incorrect to talk of it as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although it is; not simply because Israel actually exists, although it does; but because of what the weird asymmetry it creates.
On one side of the hyphen is Zionism, a movement whose ideas are rarely discussed as caricature, but on the other side are simply “Arabs”, as though only one side of the conflict had any ideology at all — and as though this wasn’t about what the Arab statesd did, but simply who they were. Hence: to it contains the way in which this is an ideological conflict, I’d suggest that, no, it contains half of the way in which this is an ideological conflict or, to put another way, hides the other half. Does that really help?
You can debate the issue of whether or not they mean Israeli Jews or Jews in general but last time I checked those bombs their using don’t seem to differentiate.
Good point about the way in which “Zionism” relates an ideology while “Arabs” doesn’t. I thought of that, but didn’t mention it because I wasn’t sure how to describe the ideology of the other side. Putting “Arab” on either side of the hyphen largely depends on whether one expects the Arab countries to play a further role, militarily, in the conflict. Since 1973 (leaving out Saddam’s scud missiles, which as horrible as they were, were primarily an internal political ploy for Arab primacy rather than an attempt to engage Israel in conflict) the Arab countries have mostly relegated themselves to the role of propagandizing and making proposals. Hence the restricted designation “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict. You’re absolutely right, though, that distinguishing Israeli ideologies makes it implied that we should distinguish Palestinian ones. I guess I just thought that from Labor to Likud, Zionism is pretty inclusive as a description, while what do you call the other side, from Fatah to Hamas? Palestinism?
Also, isn’t pan-Arabism largely a dead phenomenon? I’m surprised that you place so much emphasis on the importance of this or that concept in “pan-Arab” thought.
Oh, and also: calling for more pluralism in Israel is what the post-Zionists were after in the 90’s, with their talk of “a state for all its citizens.” This sounds fine and dandy, but obviously there are plenty of folks who think this is the same thing as calling for “the destruction of the country.” Short of “a state for all its citizens,” how should Israel become more pluralistic? It seems like possibilities on offer would be weird, stunted compromises of justice, but I’m interested in what you have to say.
Oh, and Mo — I watched your video, but I don’t recall ever saying that there were NO extremist Palestinians who hate all Jews qua Jews. I made a claim about the general speech patterns of Palestinians, the symbolic structure of their signs and referents, so to speak. Of course there are going to be people like sheik halabayah, but we should remember here that Shas was part of Barak’s coalition government, and their chief rabbi declared that Palestinians were snakes — the equivalent of one of their sheiks saying that Jews are pigs and monkeys, which didn’t happen to be included in your video. Even Benny Morris, in his recent interview with Ha’Aretz, expressed feelings to the effect that Arabs are somehow fundamentally inclined to dishonesty and barbarism. You have to look at how people generally talk, and what they mean, rather than singling out specific figures. A professor recently visited U.Va. named Mustapha Abu-Sway, who has also preached in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and his message was so far from this guy’s message that it was like Shas and Renewal trying to talk.
sam, hamas are the extremists — your comment was in the context of hamas saying to fight ‘them’ everywhere .. halabayah clearly demonstrates what hamas means by ‘them everywhere’
Zionism is pretty inclusive as a description, while what do you call the other side, from Fatah to Hamas? Palestinism?. Hence Arab-Israeli conflict which is, again, I think the most accurate descriptor. To Zionism I counterposed, above, Arabism, the idea that there should be Arab countries in the Middle East.
isn’t pan-Arabism largely a dead phenomenon? No. Here’s what I mean: I’m surprised that you place so much emphasis on the importance of this or that concept in “pan-Arab” thought.
Pan-Arabism is certainly dead as an active political force in national politics in Arab League states. None of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc. are likely to become a single country anytime soon.
On the other hand, pan-Arabism has never been as strong as it is today as a cultural force. The sense of a strong division between what is Arab and what is foreign, the apparent ability of people to make, on international television, the argument that it is preferable to be butchered by “one of us” than to tolerate any “foreign” presence — all of this speaks to a pan-Arabism whose distinction between the Arab self and un-Arab other has never been so strong.
I happen to think the growth of international Arabic-language media, first in the form of newspapers and now famously in the form transnational satellite broadcasters, has a lot to do with why. But reasons why are a whole other discussion.
calling for more pluralism in Israel is what the post-Zionists were after in the 90’s, with their talk of “a state for all its citizens.” (…) Short of “a state for all its citizens,” how should Israel become more pluralistic?
Yes — this is usually the dichotomy that is presented, and I think it’s a good illustration of how U.S.-centric that debate has become.
I’ve talked about it here before, but at the risk of repeating myself, I’ll talk about Quebec, the place I happen to live. Here we have laws protecting the French language, which is the official language, and other aspects of French-Canadian culture. Our government acts to promote the French language and cultures outside of Quebec, too, for example in the rest of Canada. Our flag, even, has a white cross with four fleur-de-lys on it. In short, the Quebec state has a special responsibility towards the French-Canadian national group, and noone can live in Quebec without being affected by that responsibility. It is not so easy to live here without speaking at least some French, for example — although, particularly in Montreal, it can certainly be done.
Now, the French-Canadian group is not the only one to whom the Quebec government has a special responsibility, and a special link. There is a historic English-speaking community whose presence leads the provincial government to ensure that it delivers public services in English. And so on.
This is not unusual. Similar issues are discussed in most European countries, in most African countries, and indeed everywhere that national groups exist whose unique language and culture cannot be taken for granted. In Israel it is not so different. Israel has a special responsibility towards Jews, because as a nation-state it is their instrument of self-determination.
That does not mean it has a special responsibility only to Jews. Nor does it mean, on the other hand, that one is likely to be able to live in Israel without ending up with some relationship towards Jews and the Jewish world. It’s just not an either/or statement.
isn’t any killing against jewish values? “Thou Shalt not Kill” ring a bell?