Assassination in Syria ;Reckless and myopic

[Englander]

The Guardian
Leader
Tuesday September 28, 2004

>>t is unlike Israel to be coy about getting rid of one of its most implacable foes, but that may be because the assassination of a leading member of the Palestinian group Hamas in Damascus was more brazen and potentially dangerous than many of its past strikes. Government officials in Jerusalem have refused to confirm that Israeli agents killed Izz el-Deen al-Sheikh Khalil in the Syrian capital on Sunday, but their nodding and winking is easy enough to interpret. Hamas, in any event, had no doubts, quickly and inevitably threatening blood-curdling retaliation. Since the organisation's speciality is dispatching suicide bombers to blow themselves up on Israeli buses, as it did - killing 16 - in Beersheba last month, it is not hard to guess what form its vengeance is likely to take, though impossible to know how many more innocent victims will die when it comes.
>>Israel counters that in such cases it is acting in pre-emptive self-defence, and that there is no difference between targeting al-Qaida operatives or Hamas leaders like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, who were killed, to widespread international condemnation, in Gaza this spring. Israel clearly feels less isolated when its loyal US ally is waging an unfettered "global war on terror". But that does not mean there is a military solution to its conflict with the Palestinians. Critics of Ariel Sharon's government, including some Israelis, point out that just because something is possible, and can be done with impunity, it is not necessarily the right thing to do. Factor in the provocation and humiliation of state-sanctioned murder in the heart of an Arab capital and Mr Sharon looks not only reckless but shortsighted.<<