Ronen Bergman demonstrated via the New York Times how a writer can undermine his own argument; in this case, that Israel’s terrorist assassinations risk begetting more terrorism.


In his February 18 op-ed piece, headlined "Bracing for Revenge," Bergman warned that the death of Imad Mughniyeh earlier this month could ignite a new wave of excessive terrorism, relatively speaking, if not a new war altogether.


Quite possible. Trouble is, it can happen, anyway - especially when Israel stretches out its hand in peace.


Mughniyeh was a thug who started young as a terrorist leader. He was blamed for the 1983 attack on the US Embassy and military barracks in Beirut that killed more than 350 people, including 241 Marines, the New York Daily News reported. He also ordered the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing 85, and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital, killing 28. The list goes on.


The Hizbullah leader was killed by a car bomb in mid-February in Damascus, according to Syrian authorities. Nobody knows for sure who deserves congratulations for Mughniyeh‘s death, but most people are betting that Israel pulled it off. At least Mughniyeh died at a relatively young age; he was 46.


Bergman, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, wrote in the Times commentary: “This act of combined vengeance, punishment and preemption might extract a far greater cost in the future.” He noted how Hizbullah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, proclaimed at his associate’s funeral: “Let it be an open war

Terrorists are determined to murder innocent people no matter what Israel does.

anywhere.”


Bergman then recounted that Ehud Barak, when he was Israel’s military chief of staff, on February 16, 1992, ordered a helicopter rocket attack on a convoy in which Sheik Abbas Musawi, another Hizbullah leader, was traveling. Musawi was killed along with his wife and six-year-old son.


In the ensuing weeks, a five-year-old girl was killed when Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel; Israel’s security chief at Israel’s embassy in Turkey was blown up by a car bomb; and 28 people were killed in the bombing of Israel’s embassy in Argentina. This was followed more than two years later by the Jewish center bombing in Buenos Aires.


Point well taken. The cause and effect here is quite evident. Trouble is, Bergman inadvertently raises a legitimate counter-argument when he writes: “The Israelis have been very cautious about assassinating Hizbullah leaders. Two weeks before Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May 2000, military intelligence had Mr. Mughniyeh in its sights.


“Mr. Barak, then prime minister, ruled out a hit, for what he claims were operational reasons, but he surely had the aftermath of the Musawi assassination in mind.”


What happened for the last eight years was even worse. In July 2000, Yasser Arafat rebuffed Barak’s offer for a Palestinian state and responded with a war that cost Israel 1,100 lives and killed more than 3,000 Arabs in Israel’s territories.


Meanwhile, terrorists in Gaza persisted with their rocket attacks against Sderot and other southern Israeli towns. Then, Israel withdrew every settler and soldier from Gaza in September 2005, and in less than a year Israel was fighting a two-front war against Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.


So what should Israel do? Or anyone? Perhaps there is no answer. Terrorists are determined to murder innocent people no matter what Israel does. The Israelis and other civilized nations can only exercise their best judgment under the circumstances of the moment.