Who Benefits from Yassin Assassination

By Neve Gordon

A few hours after the Israeli military assassinated Hamas's spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, I entered the classroom in order to teach my politics of human rights course. Everyone had already heard about the extra-judicial execution, so I asked my students whether they felt safer. The response was unanimous: they all felt more vulnerable.

A day later, Ephraim Halevy, former director of Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, stated on Israeli television that in the near future the terrorist threat would certainly increase. It would take a while, he argued, before the situation would return to the level it had been prior to the assassination and that in the long run the threat was unlikely to decrease as a result of the execution.

Considering that Yassin's assassination will exacerbate the violence in the region and thus further endanger Israeli citizens, one might ask why the government authorized the operation.

Israeli commentator Oded Granot seems to have an answer.

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Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/gordon03302004.html

was "remove the "7" from the end of that link"

thank you for reminding me about it. Fixed :)

You know some nets, smoke bombs and tear gas bombs, go in with gas masks and grab him.

The international outrage would be less. I imagine the Israeli domestic outrage would be less as well. Don't know what difference it would have made in regards to Palestinian response.

It would have been more risky for the army folk involved, but I suspect that there is increased risk to civilians from killing him, more than enough to offset the risk to the army.

This is not someone that they would be able to get easily.