Israel Says All Militant Leaders in Its Sights

JERUSALEM Reuters) - Israel said Tuesday all Palestinian militant leaders were in its sights a day after it assassinated Hamas head Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.

"Anyone who is involved in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank or anywhere else in leading a terror group knows from yesterday there is no immunity," Internal Security Minister Tsahi Hanegbi told reporters. "Everyone is in our sights." "There is no immunity to anyone. And that means anyone to the last person," he said.

Hanegbi did not give any names, but said the list of militant leaders marked for death included "those who appear on television," a veiled reference to senior Hamas officials Abdel- Aziz al-Rantissi and Mahmoud al-Zahar.

Rantissi and Zahar, both English speakers, frequently give interviews on Arab and foreign television networks.

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The Ministry of Internal Security must be thinking that it can't get much worse, might as well use this moment to wipe out all the leadership of the Palestinian resistance.
:crazy: :nuke: :scared:

on edit: added fear

If these Palestinian militant leaders are brought to justice then the Palestinian people can get back to improving their lives instead of supporting insane militant leaders driven by hate to murder innocent people.

usually don't go together...

i know, i know, everythings changed since 911 :crazy:

the neoCON doctrine will be the death of us all :nuke:

peace

Yassin declared war on Israel and Israel took him out. It's really that simple. The assasination of busloads of children by Yassin is what needs focus.

LIKEWISE

so far sharon's plans for israeli security and prosperity are a DISMAL FAILURE.

I wonder how far down they must sink before the israelis say STOP?

do they think behaving like terrorist will solve terrorism?

certainly, the methods are different of both sides but the results certainly are not.

how many more killings till we achieve peace :shrug:

peace

but what else are you to do with someone who advocates the destruction of your country for the sake of an Islamic state like Yassin was doing with Israel.

Throwing them in jail just encourages others to wage terror to bargain for their release while killing them just makes them a martyr and results in others rising up to take their place.

I don't know. Sometimes I think we just out to let the two sides exterminate each other as the hard liners on both sides refuse to recognize the right for the other to exist.

it works just compare the clinton years to the bush years in the ME or as sharon likes to say THE FACTS ON THE GROUND.

sharons record is a bloody failure, i say it's time for a change of strategy.

:hi:

peace

then in Sharon also in it's sights ?

And any civilian casualties caused by the Palestinians must also be considered "collateral damage".

Yes Sharon is a target. So is Arafat, only more so.

However, the lovely Palestinian terror network rarely hits military targets at all. It aims for civilians and maximum body count at weddings and pizza parlors and schools. And THAT is just terror plain and simple.

Sorry, but I see the Palestinians and the Israelis as on equal moral footing.

They are not on equal moral footing.

One side -- Israel -- tries to stop terror. One side -- the terrorists -- try to maximize civilian body count.

One side -- Palestine -- Seeks to end a bloody brutal and illegal occupation. One side -- Israel -- conducts istself as a brutal, bloody, visciopus occupier.

What do you view Israel is occupying?

Do you take the view that everything past the Green Line belongs to the mythic Palestinian state? Or do you take the view of Yassin's Hamas that considers everything to the sea as Palestinian and Israelis as a cancer that must be removed?

theres the problem.

thanks muddle for making it clear :toast:

peace

Where? How long?

There will be at some point. But there isn't yet. Hence the term mythic.

those who refused to leave their homes. Whether you want to admit it or not, Israel is occupying the Palestinian areas and building illegal settlements, complete with roads which don't go to any Palestinian neighborhoods. They also drill diagonally under Gaza for water, destroy homes and kill families of suspected Hamas members, and keep these people poor/starving. This does not help the situation.

As far as the violence goes, both sides are wrong here. And Israel was especially wrong with this assassination. The real issue here is that this Shiekh was actually stressing negotiation, whereas the people who replace him will not. The younger Hamas members are much more militant and there will undoubtedly be splintering and retaliation as a result. Add to that the fact that the PLO and PA have been marginalized by Israel's policies and there is no solution right now. You should have watched Charlie Rose and Nightline last night - very interesting.

There must be a two-state solution. In the past, I was hoping for an integrated society, but I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.

That is a revisionist view of history.

The Ottomans and the British were the guys in charge before Israel.

And there wouldn't have been shooting in 1948 if the Arab world had accepted partition.

The PLO and PA have been marginalized because they support terror and refuse to try another path.

Yes, there must be a two-state solution. However, what is the motivation for Israel when the Palestinian leadership supports terror just like Hamas?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

everything between the Nile and Euphrates.
Or something in between.

A map works for me.

Gush Shalom's Political positions:
The Green Line (the borders before the 1967 war)
will be a border of peace between two free and
sovereign states:
Israel and Palestine.
All Israeli settlers in the currently occupied territories
will return to Israel.
Jerusalem will be an open city, and will serve as capital
to both states:
East Jerusalem will be the capital of Palestine;
West Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel.
Both parties can reach a just and agreed upon solution
for the tragedy
of Palestinian refugees, based on these guidelines:
Israel will acknowledge its share of responsibility
for this tragedy,
and will accept, in principle, the right of return....

http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html

Of a potential future border. Even in the Geneva plan, the Palestinians made it clear they want even more territory than that. And Israel is certainly not going to let go of Jerusalem. So there is no clear-cut border as yet.

She is an Israeli reporter for Haaretz who accurately details the real history of this situation. The fact is that Israel has brought this mess on themselves through their absolutely cruel, ill-thought actions and reckless disregard for international law.

The fact is that Israel has been under attack every single day for 55 going on 56 years. If you don't see their actions in the context of survival, you are not being realistic.

Nice.

And Israel is certainly not going to let go of Jerusalem.

These are major concessions on your part.
So Israel can have no close neighbors and only
Israeliis can live in Jerusalem. Yes, I can see why
peace has been so unattainable for Israel in 55 years.

All in all, terror which doesn't have a complete,
explanatory definition accepted on the international basis
is "a symbolic activity requiring the usage of intimidation
and threat for the purpose of causing impact by the
means of unnatural behaviours involving political
expectation"

http://www.teror.gen.tr/english/whatisterrorism/definition.html

Would you like to take the time to tell the rest of this board about Chantilla? Did Belgium not declare him a war criminal?

As far as I see, no one is wearing the white hats in the Middle East.

My point exactly.

matter of fact, by a ratio of over three to one.

Round and round we go...

A pox on both their houses, says I.

To Osama "dead or alive"? Killing Saddam's Sons?

It's best to be careful when setting precedents. The Israelis can justifiably call those on the world stage (Jack Straw, the U.S administration) opposing their policies hypocrits.

Personally I think the policiy of liquidation is flawed. Yassin will be replaced, more buses will be bombed. Defending yourself by getting more people killed does not strike me a particularly bright.

The people who have been Israeli sights have included women and children, journalists, and peace activists. The worls cannot stand by and let this happen.

What punishment has ever been meted out to Israel by "the world"?

Who (apart from the Palestinians) has stood up to Israel in the last 30 years?

Anyone?

Didn't think so.

If a child is raised from infancy without being punished, they will end
up spoiled and uncontrollable. QED.

Welcome AprilGirl (but don't hold your breath).

Israel has killed far fewer Palestinians than the Jordanians have and right now that number is a few thousand. Not exactly the number you would expect from a nation commiting or even planning genocide.

If Israel wanted to kill lots of Palestinians, it has the military to do so. Instead, it tries hard to only kill terrorists and is reviled even for that.

This is euphemism for ethnic cleansing. At times it seems to border on genocide if the inhabitants do not go willingly.

Israel has killed far, far more Palestinians than Palestinians have killed Israelis -- be they Israeli civilians, Palestinian civilians, Palestinian terrorists or Israeli civilians serving in the IDF (which is required of all civilians, except those who are excused for religious reasons).

Also, aren't Jordanians supposed to be the same thing as Palestinians? These shifting positions are hard to keep up with.

They mow down homes and kill families. Sharon also murdered 2,000 refugees in Lebanon back in '82. Three times more Palestinians have died than Israelis in this intifada. Given this fact, does that mean that Israel has killed over 3,000 terrorists? That's B.S.

Last time I checked, killing a home is not murder.

Many bystanders die in war. Israel did not start the Intifadas, Arafat did. No, the 3,000 Palestinians who have died have not been all terrorists, many are merely folks caught in the crossfire or suspected of aiding Israel and killed outright by the Palestinian terror network.

They were NOT caught in the crossfire. They were murdered by men with bulldozers and tanks.

another thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x438596#top

snip>
Israeli officials argued Monday that the killing of Sheik Yassin was consistent with its plans for withdrawal, and indeed would make the withdrawal more effective.

Mr. Sharon was concerned, they explained, that the withdrawal would be seen as a retreat that would simply embolden the most radical anti-Israel forces, much as Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 seemed to embolden Hezbollah, the militant group that gets support from Syria and Lebanon.

"What happened in Lebanon was that the withdrawal gave an incentive to every jihadist to attack Israel," an Israeli official said. "Part of the Israeli policy as we move toward disengagement is to make Hamas bleed, so no one can proceed on the assumption that an Israeli withdrawal is a victory for them."

Great plan! :nuke:

I think the only things coming into Israel now
are US loan guarrantees, military equipment,
and oil.

Prime export: Israeli children and citrus.

No one wants a shekel.

The economy could shut down at anytime.-
Head of Bank of Israel.

http://www.israeleconomy.org/nbn/nbn283.htm
A 2001 article, but I'm sure things haven't gotten any
better.

http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html

this discussion, most of it, belongs in I/P