The Israeli government last week stood accused of sanctioning the assassination of Palestinian activists it deems to be security threats in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel’s Peace Now movement broke a long silence to allege that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is giving the army a free hand to eliminate suspected opponents.
The eruption of anger against the assassination campaign follows the slaying on December 31 of Thabet Thabet, a leading figure in Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organisation. For many peace activists, Thabet was a trusted ally. He was one of the first Palestinians to reach out to Israelis during the late 1980s.
The shock of his death — delivered by long-range automatic weapons fire outside his home — has brought belated scrutiny to a military strategy for containing the intifada in the West Bank and Gaza that has been in force since November 9. There is no accurate count of those systematically targeted for elimination as the military does not always own up to specific killings.
Arafat’s Palestinian Authority says 19 people have been assassinated; other sources put the figure as high as 30. Israel has always claimed the right to selectively assassinate its enemies. But the new strategy threatens not only combatants but those coordinating attacks.
With Thabet’s death, even the political leaders of Fatah are potential prey, although until the outbreak of the intifada, the group was Israel’s main partner in the peace process and cooperated with Israeli security services in arresting Hamas and Islamic Jihad bombers.
The policy is confirmed by Israeli officials, who have owned up to some of the killings and have not denied a hand in Thabet’s death. “I can tell you unequivocally what the policy is,” Deputy Minister of Defence Ephraim Sneh said. “If anyone has committed or is planning to carry out terrorist attacks, he has to be hit. It is effective, precise and just.”
But the Israeli left is no longer willing to tolerate that argument — especially when applied to Thabet. “Gunning down a person coming out of his house in broad daylight is a Mafia-style action and it is not legitimate for any government,” said Yehudith Harel, a peace activist. “What kind of military activity is this? This is absolutely illegal.”
Last week a lawyer acting for Thabet’s widow set out to prove just that, lodging an injunction in Israel’s Supreme Court to stop the army from killing Palestinian activists. Israel does not have capital punishment. “All these killings are against Israeli law,” said Naila Attiya, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. “There are assassination plans, and maybe by going to the court we can stop them from being carried out.”
Last week Palestinian officials said they were gathering evidence to try Barak and his government for war crimes. “We consider the Israeli government, the prime minister and all members of the Israeli government as criminals who should be prosecuted,” said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abd Rabbo.
Israeli military officials obliquely announced the new policy in early November, saying they were moving towards “initiated attacks” to stop Fatah militia from firing on Jewish outposts or settlers in the West Bank, or placing roadside bombs. Soon after, the military stepped up the liquidation policy, calculating that the targeting of Fatah activists would be less damaging to Israel’s international image than the bombardments of Palestinian cities ordered earlier in the intifada.
Until Thabet was killed, the Israeli public was broadly supportive. But the assassination of such a high-profile figure was too much to stomach. Attiya’s appeal to the Supreme Court, which she says is based on the Geneva Convention as well as Israeli law, marks the first time a prime minister has been asked to answer in court for Israel’s decades-old policy of assassinating opponents it accuses of plotting acts of terror.
A former commando, Barak famously put on a blond wig and a dress to sneak into Beirut 27 years ago to assassinate three Palestinians suspected of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He was also involved in the 1988 killing in Tunis of Abu Jihad — one of the most romantic figures of the Palestinian movement.
Barak,who doubles as Israel’s minister of defence, told a recent meeting of Parliament that he had given his approval to the operations. Several MPs asked Barak to stop them. He refused. In an interview with an American TV news programme, he issued a coy denial of a new assassination policy, but admitted: “There is a clear kind of permanent policy here to hit those who hit you.”