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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (97979)	5/12/2003 2:11:08 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

1982 was the time for it...Israel made a big mistake...BUT, targeted assassinations has the problem that the executioner becomes the dictator for life. Imagine the world in which US President orders the assassination of every head of state who proves difficult to deal with. It is a very slippery slope towards the kind of world we do not wish to live in.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (97979)	5/12/2003 3:09:37 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<I wish for Arafat to die, soon, and if he dies violently at Israeli hands, my only concern will be for the political repurcussions.> Assassination, as a political tool, only works if it is carried out on a mass scale. Stalin, when he targeted a group, didn't just kill a few leaders. He killed entire classes of people, like the kulaks. He killed entire ethnic groups, or deported them from their homeland, and scattered them. Anything short of that, doesn't work. The proper term for this method, is not "assassination", but "ethnic cleansing". Or genocide. The problem is not Arafat, it is the support Arafat has, and Arafat's methods, from the vast majority of the Palestinians. Kill Arafat, without dealing with the reasons he is a leader, and the Palestinians will follow leaders worse than Arafat. In general, Israel's attacks on the PA, have had the practical effect of helping Hamas. Targetted assassinations is a half-way temporizing measure, which actually worsens the problem, and leads to further reciprocal attacks on Israelis. Nothing short of mass deportations of Palestinians, will stop the Intifada. Or dealing with the reasons why Palestinians support the PA and Hamas. That means giving them a nation of their own, which means ending the colonization policy. Since ethnic cleansing (by deportation or death) in the West Bank would end U.S. support for Israel, and Israel cannot survive without that support, there remains only one possible road to peace. You have, in all your posts, consistently said that Israel is superior in every way, to her opponents. Morally, culturally, technologically, in political and economic practice. Across the board. How do you square this, with your support of serial assassination? Can't you see that Israel has gradually come to use the same tactics, and the same mindset, as the worst of her enemies? The most hopefull sign I see, is that many Israelis are, for the first time, refusing to participate. Beginning with the Lebanon occupation, Israelis started to refuse military service, or refuse to serve in certain areas, or do certain things. This had never happened before, in any of Israel's wars. Israelis are looking in the mirror, and they don't like what they see. Not many, yet. But the fact that it is happening at all, shows the crisis of self-confidence, the beginning of self-criticism replacing the reflexive defensiveness.