The Palestinian uprising against Israel's military occupation and economic
stranglehold on the West Bank and Gaza has escalated to indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants by suicide bombers and targeted assassinations
of suspected accessories to suicide bombings.
For people, such as the Palestinians, who have no army to defend themselves,
yet remain indefinitely subjugated by overwhelming military force, suicide
bombing has become the resistance weapon of choice. Dynamite is apparently
easier to smuggle into the territories than handguns or rockets.
Israel, the occupier, has at its disposal well trained and experienced
armed forces, equipped with highly sophisticated weapons and equipment,
most of them made in America and financed with American money. Israel's
government obviously assumes that, as the occupying power, it is entitled
to impose its will on the Palestinians as it sees fit: to use force,
even deadly force, against rioters; to bulldoze homes of those who resist,
and to confiscate Palestinian land for Israeli use.
When young Palestinians died in suicide bombings, Israeli authorities
have been punishing their families by destroying their homes. To retaliate
more dramatically, they decided to go also after those whom they suspect
of instigating, organizing, or otherwise aiding suicide bombers.
With sophisticated surveillance capabilities, and aided by a few Palestinian
collaborators, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has collected the names
and addresses of potential suspects, particularly members of Hamas,
the Al-Aqsa Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP), and other resistance groups. The IDF could easily arrest and
try these suspects and thus adhere to due process of law, but the Sharon
regime prefers to get rid of them more efficiently and permanently:
by targeted assassinations. "Every member of Hamas is a potential
target for liquidation," declared Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon,
the Israeli army's chief of staff. The certainty and degree of a suspect's
culpability is apparently irrelevant.
The Guardian, a British paper, reported that when Abu Ali Mustafa of
the PFLP was targeted for assassination, "laser-guided missiles
fired from helicopters flashed through the windows of his Ramallah office,
as he took a telephone call that was almost certainly placed to 'fix'
him. The attack was so precise that it left the window frame intact."
Most assassinations by antitank missiles from Apache helicopters kill
bystanders who may be just as innocent as the victims of suicide bombings.
To kill Salah Shehadeh a year ago, an Israeli plane dropped a 1,000-kilogram
bomb on the al-Daraj neighborhood in Gaza, the world's most densely
populated area. Several apartment buildings collapsed, 14 people, including
7 children, died and over 150 were injured.
As yet, Israel has not suffered a single casualty in its assassination
campaign. In the past ten months, according to the Jordan Times, 533
Palestinians and 132 Israelis have lost their lives in violent encounters.
Many Israelis are appalled by the targeted assassinations. Israeli attorneys
filed a lawsuit against the State of Israel, the prime minister, and
the IDF "alleging widespread and wanton extra-judicial killings
of Palestinians." Two American attorneys from Portland, Oregon,
submitted a similar suit to the Israeli Supreme Court. One of them,
Thomas H. Nelson, explained: "No one would challenge an IDF soldier
shooting a Hamas militant about to kill an Israeli, at least as long
as no lesser means of restraint was available. But the recent cases
show a policy of cold, calculated, extra-judicial killings carried out
when there was no imminent threat to anyone."
President Bush recently froze the assets of charities suspected of supporting
Hamas and its suicide bombings. In fairness to the hundreds of collateral
Palestinian victims of targeted killings, it may also be justified for
Congress to freeze America's billion-dollar support to the Israeli assassins.
That might yet help the Sharon regime hasten an end to the occupation
and its murderous excesses.
America is steadfastly supporting Israel's statehood and would loyally
defend it if it ever were endangered. America, however, cannot afford
condoning and financing the immorality and illegality of Israel's unabated
destruction of noncombatants and their property.