I think that many factors contributed to the end of the Second Intifada: the building of the separation barrier, fatigue, the disengagement from Gaza, stronger Israeli intelligence, the rise of Mahmoud Abbas, etc etc. I am not a historian and I don’t intend to weigh up those factors. But, yes, I would be prepared to acknowledge that targeted assassinations affected Palestinian decision-making. But it cuts both ways. Generally, assassinations were used when there was a lull in the fighting. This was short-term thinking at its most tragic; politicians cutting off Medusa’s head in the knowledge that it would grow back. In the absence of an accompanying political plan, the use of force will never be sufficient to solve the problem. So, while I would accept that targeted assassinations had some short-term benefits, I do not accept that they have solved the ultimate problem (that of how we are going to somehow share this tiny land) in the long-run.

By the way, you may want to reflect on one particular targeted assassination, that of Salah Shehade, killed with a one-ton bomb in Gaza. Among the “imbecile Palestinians” killed were nine children. As a proud Israeli, Zionist, Jew, and former soldier in the IDF, I’m not prepared to tolerate my country behaving in such a way.

Alex

“I regularly spoke out against the IDF practice of targeted assassinations – the sending of helicopter gunships and hit-squads to kill leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad et al. Since the dying down of the Intifada, the practice seems to have all but died out, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remind ourselves why it’s wrong.”

You’re an untter moron and I would laugh happily wee you to be killed by a terrorist who the IDF chose to not take out because some imbecile palestinians would also die.

By the way, I don’t agree that the High Court is the guardian of democracy, at least not in an effective manner (for more, look at Richard Posner’s review of Aharon Barak’s book), that’s not really relevant to this post.