Sarah Whalen, Arab News
âFirst thing we do, letâs kill all the lawyers,â cries Dick the Butcher, a rabble-rouser plotting to overthrow 15th century Englandâs King Henry VI in Shakespeareâs play. But after Israelâs ruthless assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, perhaps Shakespeare would have altered his famous line to, âFirst thing we do, letâs kill all the leaders.â
| There's a difference between warfare and a play, even a play about warfare. But go on... |
For this is exactly what Israel proclaims for all Hamas, Islamic Jihad groups, and even secularists like Yasser Arafat.
| She's talking about the people who're making war on Israel and by extension on civilization... |
Six months ago, Israelâs Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that it had âmarkedâ Yassin âfor death.â Now, Israel has openly lengthened its âhitâ list. Israeli Public Safety Minister Tzachi Hanegbi avows: âEveryone is in our sights.â And Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz declared that Israelâs âliquidatingâ has only just begun.
| Seems like a reasonable attitude to me. People who're responsible for liquidating people on buses should be liable for liquidation themselves. It's only fair. |
The Bush administrationâs response to Israelâs open policy of indiscriminate assassination is akin to Shakespeareâs Cade, Dick the Butcherâs ruffian leader, who ponders the wisdom of killing âall the lawyers,â then agrees because lawyers are tricky and bad. Cade and Dick then scurry off and kill the clerk of court. Who was not a lawyer, but close enough.
| The sheikh didn't toss bombs, but he sent people to do it. Close enough. |
Back in the 21st century, US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice furrowed her brow, called for calm âin the region,â and then reprised Cadeâs death-to-lawyers remarks: âLetâs remember,â former Stanford University Professor Rice lectured, âthat Hamas is a terrorist organization and that Sheikh Yassin has himself personally, we believe, been involved in terrorist planning.â Not âterrorismâ per se, but âterrorist planning.â Does this ring a bell?
| Dang! It sure does! Like in The Godfather, when the Don doesn't bump people off, he has Luca Brasi do it. And then after Luca and the Don are both dead, Mike gets his own "Luca Brasi." Masterful! |
Not âweapons of mass destruction,â but âweapons systems plans.â
| Oh. Sorry. Thought you were making sense for a minute there. |
Few contend that Yassin, practically blind, was an active terrorist himself. His crippled body confined him to a wheelchair and his reedy voice barely whispered. But he set an agenda long ago, and his refusal to compromise with Israel on any terms, and his demand of Palestine for Palestinians, marked him.
| Actually, it was the bus booms. And the dead kiddies. You claim to be a lawyer, Sarah. You know that the guy that hires the button men is as culpable as the button men are. That's first-year law. |
Israeli politicians claim Yassin actively sponsored suicide bombing. But even if true, Israel has no one to blame but itself.
| That's a dumbassed statement if I ever heard one. But somehow in the Arab world the victim's at fault, unless the victim's an Arab. Seems to work that way in the lefty world, too... |
In 1989, Israel had snugly imprisoned Yassin away for life, having tried, convicted, and sentenced him for complicity in the murder of Palestinian Israeli collaborators. In 1997, Israel agreed with Jordan and the United States on the exact value of Yassinâs life â two Israeli agents caught in a bungled attempt to poison a Hamas leader lawfully within Jordan, a country which enjoyed, in theory, a full peace with Israel. Then-King Hussein had reportedly telephoned the United States, and furiously threatened to execute Israelâs assassins if Israel did not immediately provide an antidote. In settlement of Israelâs egregious breach of Jordanâs sovereignty, Israel traded Yassin for the two Israeli assassins, whom Jordan had every right to execute. Deal done.
| I agree. That was a crummy idea. It bought them no end of grief in the long run. But it's hard to let your loyal people get bumped off. |
Now, following Americaâs invasion and occupation of Iraq, Israel decided its deal for Yassin looked less good than it had seven years ago.
| That's because he went back to his old ways, only worse, killing people in droves... |
And so, under cover of darkness for an even darker deed, before the daybreak had cleaved from the dark, Israel sent yet more assassins, armed with three missiles from a US-made Apache helicopter.
| Wow! Is that prose purple! And nobody else makes Apache helicopters, so it's not necessary to refer to them as 'US-made." It's kinda redundant unless you're mindlessly trying to make a political point that has no meaning. |
They swooped down from the sky as Yassin, family members, and others left a mosque after morning prayer, and blew them to bits.
| Hurrah! Brain globules everywhere! |
If democracy is to bring Dr. Riceâs âbetter dayâ to the Middle East, one must question how much the targeted killing of Middle Easterners by both Israel and the US is part of the plan.
| My guess would be that the killing removed an obstacle, an enemy of democracy and of individual liberty. What's yours? |
Although Rice claimed Israel had not âinformedâ the US âin advanceâ of its clearly long-considered murder plot, advance notice seems to have scarcely mattered.
| It didn't. Sovreign country, taking action against its enemy. The Russians don't check with us, either. Neither do the Brits. Israel's not a U.S. colony. |
One wonders whether Rice would have told the Israelis not to go through with the assassination. Or would she have warned Yassin, as US law requires, so as not to become part of Israelâs murderous conspiracy?
| Guess we'll never know. Maybe that requirement for warning is why they didn't tell us. Or maybe because it was their business and not ours. We don't tell them when we're going to sweep Khost or Fallujah, either... |
What should profoundly disturb us is that Israelâs âkill all the leadersâ policy seems such a perfect fit with Americaâs own plans for the Middle East. We want to âhunt downâ and kill Osama Bin Laden, virtually every Al-Qaeda member and every member of the Taleban.
| That's because we're at war with them. Haven't you heard? They attacked us. They can surrender or die. Israel feels the same way about the Paleo thugs. |
We have advertised bounties on many Iraqi former officials and has already hunted down and killed Saddamâs two sons. We would have likely killed Saddam himself if they had captured him before the warâs official end, when military law turns lawful âtargeted killingâ into cold-blooded murder. Dead or alive. But everyone knows that dead is easier.
| Yeah, it is. It doesn't respond well to interrogation, though. And it would have been lawful and legal to have shot Sammy on the spot, since he was out of uniform and engaged in non-conventional warfare. |
About Israelâs plans to murder Yassin, and then to murder again and again, until the last resisting Palestinian falls dead in Israelâs crosshairs, the greatest democracy in the world says ..... well, nothing.
| This particular 1/285,000,000th of it says "Good idea!" |
US Gen. Wesley Clark claims the Pentagon plans to invade, occupy, or otherwise pacify seven Middle Eastern states in five years. How to accomplish this? First thing we do, letâs kill all the leaders. It makes democracy so much easier to come by.
â Sarah Whalen is an expert in Islamic law and taught law at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.
| What lucky students she had. Got a mind like a steel trap, she does... |
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