A debate surrounding the Israeli government’s policy of targeted killings has recently resurfaced in the media as Hamas lost two of its senior leaders to this strategy. Hamas spiritual leader Ahmad Yasin and the movement’s leader in Gaza ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz A-Rantisi were killed within the space of a month by Israeli forces, generating discourse not only on the morality of the measure, but also on its benefit.
Israel maintains Hamas leaders are directly involved in planning and funding terrorist operations, that there is no difference between the military and political wing of a terror organization and therefore all its leaders are fair game. Israel believes that eliminating the movement’s heads will paralyze Hamas and throw it into a state of turmoil.
But the benefit of this move has nevertheless been contested. Sami Baroudi, a professor of political science at the American University in Lebanon told the Voice of America, an American governmental broadcasting service, that Israel’s policy of assassinations is gaining increasing support for radical Islamists among Palestinians. The more leaders they kill, the more support Hamas will gain, he said, ultimately detracting from support for the secular leadership which is prepared to recognize Israel and negotiate with it.
Baroudi said Hamas attacks are carried out by cells and not by the senior political leadership, and so eliminating the leadership will have no impact on the organization’s ability to carry out suicide bombings.
Calling people like Yasin and A-Rantisi “symbolic leaders,” Baroudi said he does not think they are the ones operating on the ground or involved in preparing the attacks.
Other opponents of the killings cite Hamas’s widespread educational, charitable, healthcare and social activities, which have won it immense popularity. They describe Hamas not as a terror movement but rather as a social and political movement.
Proponents of targeted killings claim the benefits of the killings are already apparent. As a matter of fact, Hamas has of yet (April 25, 2004) not succeeded in carrying out large-scale terror attacks against Israel in the aftermath the killings, as its leaders determinedly vowed.
They maintain this is a direct result of the killings, which have damaged coordination within the movement, sent the terrified leaders underground for fear of being next on the hit-list, and generally wreaked havoc in the organization.
Meanwhile, it seems the Israeli leadership is not alone in its thinking that the killings are beneficial.
U.S. State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism J. Cofer Black has recently made comments in line with this thinking. Black, a former director at the CIA Counterterrorism Center said at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on April 21st that the killing of A-Rantisi will disrupt Hamas, causing a ripple effect on the group’s popular following. He said Hamas, which is on the U.S. administration’s terror list, will have a hard time replacing A-Rantisi, but added that it is still too early to discern whether the move will have an impact on the movement’s ability to carry out terror attacks against Israel.
Meanwhile, a Bethlehem-based organization called the Palestinian Center for Research and Cultural Dialogue conducted a poll after the killings which suggested that support for Hamas in the Palestinian territories is on the rise. Unlike previous polls where Hamas surpassed the popularity of Palestinian Chairman Yassir Arafat’s Fatah faction in Gaza alone, it seems that now the movement has made its mark in all parts of the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has now ruffled some feathers suggesting last week that Arafat is not immune to Israel’s targeted killings. Arafat’s standing as a popular leader in the Palestinian Authority is a point to be considered before this thought is put into practice.