In the early hours of April 11, 1973, officer Ehud Barak returned home, lipstick still on his lips. Doubts plagued his wife. She feared the young officer may have betrayed his country. But the news would soon ease her concerns.
He came with Palestinian blood on his hands. Hours earlier, an Israeli commando unit had carried out a raid in Beirut, killing three leading members of Fatah: Abou Youssef al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan and Kamal Nasser. During one of the raids, Barak, disguised as a woman, shot dead one of the Fatah members.
The Verdun massacre was part of the Mossad’s Operation Wrath of God aimed at killing everyone who was involved in the attack on the Israeli team taking part in the Munich Olympics. The Black September group had been accused of carrying out the attack.
The raid that Barak had taken part in was very dangerous, but it was only a drop in the river of assassinations. Israeli expert Ronen Bergman said the Jewish state had carried out some 2,700 assassinations in 71 years, or an average of 38 per year.
Just weeks ago, the Mossad declared that it would kill everyone involved in Hamas' Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, regardless of where they are and no matter how much time it takes. The threat materialized with Saleh al-Arouri's assassination in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahieh. The development was a dangerous breach of the “rules of engagement” that had prevailed at the Lebanese-Israeli front since the 2006 war. Al-Arouri was punished for his role in Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank and for coordinating with Hezbollah in Syria and Iran.
In Israel, regulations demand that the prime minister personally approve of the assassination of any prominent figure, whose death could have major political and security implications. So, assassinations over the years have been approved by successive prime ministers. Assassinations have been a firm policy in Israel. Its assassinations have targeted Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iranians and others. Its targets have not been limited to military figures, but nuclear scientists and experts in the development of drones and missiles. Israel has never hesitated in violating the sovereignty of nations and international law in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in pursuit of assassination targets.
My interest in the assassinations was piqued in 1995 after interviewing “Islamic Jihad” founder in Palestine Dr. Fathi Shaqaqi, who was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and sympathized with the Khomeini revolution. As soon as I entered his Damascus office, he told me: “Don’t ask me about memories. I still have a lot to do.” He often said things like “I have seen more than you can imagine”. It was natural for such statements to be uttered by a young man in his 40s.
Later that year, the “Islamic Jihad” carried out a double suicide attack near Tel Aviv that left 20 Israeli soldiers dead. Then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin warned that borders were no obstacle in the pursuit of the “terrorists”. He carried out his threat and the Mossad successfully assassinated a Libyan, Dr. Ibrahim Ali Shawesh, as he was passing through Malta from Libya. Shawesh was none other than Shaqaqi, who had concealed his alias from his own wife.
The river of assassinations gushed in several directions. Israel assassinated member of Fatah’s executive committee Khalil al-Wazir (Abou Jihad) over his bold operations, including his role in sparking the first Palestinian Intifada. It also assassinated Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Abou Ali Mustafa as part of a so-called Mossad policy of “cutting the head of the snake”. Israel also assassinated Hamas founder Ahmed Yassine, his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi and several generals of the Qassam Brigades. It also assassinated Secretary-General of Hezbollah in Lebanon Abbas Moussawi and later assassinated one of the party’s most prominent military officials, Imad Mughnieh, in Damascus.
We don’t have enough room here to name the most prominent Israeli assassinations. They were approved by Meir, Rabin, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon and others over the years. Israeli governments were deluded in believing that severing heads would break the will of those demanding their rights. Evidently, this is a very dangerous and short-sighted policy as demonstrated with what’s happening in Gaza right now. The policy of assassinations did not take into account the major changes that have taken place in the region, especially in wake of the US invasion of Iraq.
The policy of assassinations was dreadful indeed. But I believe its most dangerous aspect is the insistence of assassinating the idea of peace itself. It kills the peace partner and then claims that there is no peace partner. In this regard, Benjamin Netanyahu is the master of assassinations. His “accomplishments” have outdone his predecessors.
We have witnessed several major assassinations, such as assassinating the conditions introduced by the Oslo Accords after the handshake between Yasser Arafat and Rabin. The agreement was not ideal, but paved the way for hope and progress towards a solution that would allow the Palestinians to build their own independent state and end the journey of displacement, loss and bloodshed.
Netanyahu’s policy – along with Sharon’s contribution – assassinated the Palestinian territories with settlements. It broke the weak Palestinian Authority and besieged Mahmoud Abbas after having had besieged Arafat. It also assassinated the opportunity presented by the Arab Peace Initiative launched in Beirut in 2002. Netanyahu’s latest government assassinated the last chance for peace. A government of extremists is like an explosive. So, here we see the government retaliating to the Al-Aqsa Flood with the assassination of Gaza and its people, homes, hospitals, journalists, schools and tents. It is a river of blood and landscape of tents.
Antony Blinken is touring the region with pleas to prevent the eruption of a regional war. He is trying to rein in the “parallel wars” that have erupted in the region in wake of the war on Gaza. There can be no other solution than preventing the Netanyahu government from assassinating the “two-state” solution. This can be done by preventing him from killing off Gaza completely.
Any leniency in this issue would mean keeping the Middle East in the whirlpool of assassinations, explosives and floods. The river of assassinations must be stopped. Long experiences have shown that killing the champion of a dream does not kill the dream but invigorates it.
