Does Israel Have A Right To Assassinate Leaders Of The Palestinian Intifadeh?

The way things are now between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, every act of folly can be justified by the deed that preceded it. The situation is so violent and chaotic, and seems so inexorable, that both sides feel they are bound, even doomed, to respond with ever increasing force to each enemy action.

The attack on Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was, however, foolish and dangerous, even within this tangled context. It was an act of revenge meant, first and foremost, to bolster Israeli deterrence. It was also aimed at dealing a blow to Palestinian morale, one that would force the Palestinian Authority to talk with Israel.

Neither of these goals was achieved. It seems to me that it shouldn't have been difficult to guess that the action would achieve the precise opposite and only make matters worse.

Let me state without hesitation, however, that Israel has every right to defend itself. If official spokesmen for the Palestinians declare that they intend to send dozens of suicide bombers to Israeli city centers, they should hardly be surprised that Israel responds with a lopsided display of force aimed at foiling such deeds and impeding their perpetrators. When Palestinian leaders declare that Israel has "crossed a red line," they sound disingenuous. After all, it is they who have encouraged acts of indiscriminate mass murder of innocent citizens, children and infants within the borders of the state of Israel. Apparently we have all become so callous, have become so accustomed to the unbearable lightness of death in our region, that we need to remember that to murder a human being, whether Israeli or Palestinian, is blatantly to cross a red line.

Nevertheless, even as the heart churns at the site of seven innocent murdered Israelis--the act that led to the attack in Ramallah--I remind myself of a few simple truths.

Violence will not bring peace, only more violence. Killing influential leaders will not eliminate their beliefs or support of their ideas. It will do the opposite. You can't break a people's spirit by hitting its leaders. On the contrary. I also remind myself, and Israel's leaders, that a conqueror who does not open a window of hope to the conquered cannot, with an entirely clear conscience, lecture them for being pushed, more and more, into a desperate and violent extremism.

So, in the current circumstances, Israel and the Palestinians must show less "creativity" in killing and attacking each other and more in seeking a resolution of the conflict. Both parties must resume negotiations unconditionally. Without negotiations we will all be helplessly caught in a spiral of murder and revenge. Without hope, we will all be doomed to be battered time and again by the deadly symptoms of our disease until, perhaps very soon, we will find ourselves powerless to treat the illness itself.

--Translated by Haim Watzman

David Grossman, one of Israel's pre-eminent commentators and novelists, is the author of The Yellow Wind, a book about the first Palestinian intifadeh, and the novel See Under: Love