Excerpts From \"Israelis Must Kill or Be Killed,\" by Hillel Halkin, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 28
...When I say that certain Palestinians who do not know my name, and have never met me, are trying to kill me, I do not mean this metaphorically. Acts of terror by Palestinians -- bus bombings, discotheque bombings, cafe bombings -- are aimed at all Jews living in Israel, of whom I am one... This is the definition of Terror. It does not care whom it kills and maims as long as it kills or maims.
There is no great mystery about who the people trying to kill me are. Most belong to two organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which operate freely in those parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Some, like Abu Ali Mustafa of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hit by an Israeli rocket in Ramallah on Monday, are affiliated with other groups.
...True, the Palestinian Authority does not always know who these operatives are. Many are first-timers, inducted and trained secretly. It knows very well, however, who their inductors and trainers are, just as it knows who are the \"engineers\" who make the bombs. Why shouldn\'t it? Many are men with long terrorist records who have served time in Israeli and Palestinian jails; many were released from Palestinian jails when the violence began, with the full expectation that they would resume their former careers... Some, like Amin el-Hindi of Nablus or Mohammed Deif of Gaza, are Palestinian folk heroes about whom ballads are sung and worshipful stories told. None has been put out of action by the Palestinian Authority...
They are trying to kill me, so what should I do about it? Consider the alternatives:
1) I can ask the Palestinian Authority to arrest such men. This has been done without results so often that to suggest doing it again is a stale joke.
2) I can try to deter them by massive retaliation. For every Israeli they kill, I can kill 10 Palestinians; for every establishment they blow up, I can destroy a dozen Palestinian houses. This is not only cruel, however, it has proven highly unproductive, as it only leads to more suicide bombers clamoring for revenge. Besides, it is just what the Palestinian leadership wants me to do. This leadership may rejoice at the sight of dead Israelis, but it gets more mileage out of dead Palestinians, because it knows what the sight of them does to international opinion.
3) I can post a commando unit on every street corner in Israel to intercept the bombers when they reach their destinations. This is an excellent idea. There are tens of thousands of such street corners. Perhaps NATO would like to send a military expedition.
4) I can make careful use of the intelligence at Israel\'s disposal to identify, locate and kill the bombers\' ringleaders with minimal loss of innocent life by such means as booby-trapping their telephones, rocketing their cars and offices, etc. In a word, assassinate them.
...[Assassinations are] ugly, they\'re brutal -- and they\'re the most moral way of dealing with an ugly, brutal problem. In fact they\'re the opposite of Terror. Terror kills indiscriminately. Assassinations of the right people are as discriminating as you can possibly get while fighting a war.
Of course, they are not totally so. Mishaps occur. Mistakes are made. There have been cases of Israel targeting the wrong person. Innocent Palestinians in the vicinity of assassinated terrorists have been killed. There are difficult moral choices to be made. Do you fire a rocket at a past and future mass murderer who may not be targetable again for a long time if innocent people are nearby?
But these are moral choices. Deciding between sending a suicide bomber to a discotheque or to a pizzeria is not. [In addition,] assassinating terrorist leaders works...
If you have better advice for Israel, feel free to give it. Just don\'t tell us it\'s our duty to die.
...When I say that certain Palestinians who do not know my name, and have never met me, are trying to kill me, I do not mean this metaphorically. Acts of terror by Palestinians -- bus bombings, discotheque bombings, cafe bombings -- are aimed at all Jews living in Israel, of whom I am one... This is the definition of Terror. It does not care whom it kills and maims as long as it kills or maims.
There is no great mystery about who the people trying to kill me are. Most belong to two organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which operate freely in those parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Some, like Abu Ali Mustafa of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hit by an Israeli rocket in Ramallah on Monday, are affiliated with other groups.
...True, the Palestinian Authority does not always know who these operatives are. Many are first-timers, inducted and trained secretly. It knows very well, however, who their inductors and trainers are, just as it knows who are the \"engineers\" who make the bombs. Why shouldn\'t it? Many are men with long terrorist records who have served time in Israeli and Palestinian jails; many were released from Palestinian jails when the violence began, with the full expectation that they would resume their former careers... Some, like Amin el-Hindi of Nablus or Mohammed Deif of Gaza, are Palestinian folk heroes about whom ballads are sung and worshipful stories told. None has been put out of action by the Palestinian Authority...
They are trying to kill me, so what should I do about it? Consider the alternatives:
1) I can ask the Palestinian Authority to arrest such men. This has been done without results so often that to suggest doing it again is a stale joke.
2) I can try to deter them by massive retaliation. For every Israeli they kill, I can kill 10 Palestinians; for every establishment they blow up, I can destroy a dozen Palestinian houses. This is not only cruel, however, it has proven highly unproductive, as it only leads to more suicide bombers clamoring for revenge. Besides, it is just what the Palestinian leadership wants me to do. This leadership may rejoice at the sight of dead Israelis, but it gets more mileage out of dead Palestinians, because it knows what the sight of them does to international opinion.
3) I can post a commando unit on every street corner in Israel to intercept the bombers when they reach their destinations. This is an excellent idea. There are tens of thousands of such street corners. Perhaps NATO would like to send a military expedition.
4) I can make careful use of the intelligence at Israel\'s disposal to identify, locate and kill the bombers\' ringleaders with minimal loss of innocent life by such means as booby-trapping their telephones, rocketing their cars and offices, etc. In a word, assassinate them.
...[Assassinations are] ugly, they\'re brutal -- and they\'re the most moral way of dealing with an ugly, brutal problem. In fact they\'re the opposite of Terror. Terror kills indiscriminately. Assassinations of the right people are as discriminating as you can possibly get while fighting a war.
Of course, they are not totally so. Mishaps occur. Mistakes are made. There have been cases of Israel targeting the wrong person. Innocent Palestinians in the vicinity of assassinated terrorists have been killed. There are difficult moral choices to be made. Do you fire a rocket at a past and future mass murderer who may not be targetable again for a long time if innocent people are nearby?
But these are moral choices. Deciding between sending a suicide bomber to a discotheque or to a pizzeria is not. [In addition,] assassinating terrorist leaders works...
If you have better advice for Israel, feel free to give it. Just don\'t tell us it\'s our duty to die.