Breaking News: Hamas Leader Killed in Israeli Air Strike

<a HREF="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/19/world/main593961.shtml">Israel To Target Hamas Founder (Jan 16, 2004)</a>

<i>.......An Israeli strike against Yassin, who is revered also by Palestinians who do not support Hamas, would likely provoke revenge bombings.
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Yassin already dodged one Israeli attempt to kill him in September. A warplane dropped a 550-pound bomb on a building where he and other Hamas leaders were meeting, but Yassin escaped with just a small wound to his hand.
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After several other high-profile but ineffective attacks against Palestinian leaders in the summer, Israel scaled back its attacks in concert with a significant drop in Hamas bombings.

However, there was never evidence of even an unspoken agreement between the two enemies. Israel insisted that the downturn was attributable to its own security forces, claiming that they arrested as many as 30 potential suicide bombers.

For their part, Hamas leaders, though often in hiding to avoid Israeli strikes, kept up their militant pronouncements and rebuffed efforts by Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Egyptian mediators to declare a halt to attacks against Israelis. Yassin reiterated Friday that Hamas would not agree to a cease-fire......
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A possible attempt at a salient rebuttal. An interesing factoid by Mango. However, this factoid does little to prove that Israel didn't know where the man was for years and has been trying continually to murder him, only succeeding a couple of days ago. It certainly doesn't prove that the timing was not deliberate for some unknown reason.

Perhaps Mango is implying this. We don't know.

Factoids in isolation are limited. Forest for the trees, Mango. In between factoid checking of only liberal oriented posts, try adding some anaysis or even opinion to flesh out and liven up your posts.

 

I did not shed a tear for that guy and I will not shed a tear for this guy



either, who is his successor.

 

Hamas Says It Will Target Sharon, Not U.S.
By LARA SUKHTIAN, AP

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (March 24) - The new Hamas leader in Gaza said on Wednesday the group had no plans to attack American targets, pulling back from retaliatory threats by the group's armed wing after Israel's assassination of the Hamas founder.

At the same time, however, another top Hamas political figure said the militant group would try to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in retaliation for the death of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

The Islamic group had made veiled threats it would retaliate against the United States for Yassin's killing, but it has rarely attacked American targets during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a hard-liner named Tuesday as Hamas' new Gaza chieftain, said the group's militant activities were aimed solely at Israel, which it has pledged to destroy and replace with an Islamic state.

''We are inside Palestinian land and acting only inside Palestinian land. We are resisting the occupation, nothing else,'' Rantisi told reporters in Gaza. ''Our resistance will continue just inside our border, here inside our country.''

Rantisi also denied reports Hamas now would join with al-Qaida, calling the claims ''Zionist propaganda.''

The armed wing of Hamas issued a statement Monday saying America's backing of Israel had made Yassin's assassination possible. ''All the Muslims of the world will be honored to join in on the retaliation for this crime,'' the statement said.

President Bush said after the statement that the United States took the threat seriously. On Tuesday, the State Department repeated a long-standing warning urging Americans not to travel to the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile Wednesday, Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' overall leader, who is based in Damascus, Syria, said the group's military wing would assess its abilities to kill Sharon.

''I hope that the holy warriors can retaliate against this awful crime by targeting the most prominent Zionist leaders ... including Sharon,'' Mashaal said in an interview posted on a Hamas Web site. ''I hope they can succeed.''

For its part, Israel has decided to target the entire Hamas leadership. Israel says Hamas has killed 377 Israelis in hundreds of attacks, including 52 suicide bombings, over the past three and a half years.

Rantisi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt last June, said Wednesday he was not concerned.

''It's death by killing or cancer,'' said Rantisi, a trained physician. ''If it's cardiac arrest or an Apache (helicopter), I prefer to be killed by an Apache.'' (I think they should help him )

Rantisi, 54, has appeared in public frequently since Yassin's death, but always in large crowds that deter an Israeli attack.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians at a Gaza City soccer stadium cheered the announcement Tuesday night that Rantisi had been chosen leader. One by one, senior Hamas officials got up and swore loyalty to him.

Rantisi rejects even a temporary suspension of attacks on Israel.

Rantisi led about 1,000 people in noon prayers Wednesday at the stadium, where Hamas has organized mourning ceremonies. As he spoke to reporters afterward, he was surrounded by about 25 youths wearing green Hamas bandanas.

Also, several hundred women gathered in a mourning tent near Yassin's home in a run-down Gaza City neighborhood. Many wore Hamas headbands, and some wrapped themselves in long pieces of green Hamas flags. ''Rantisi, give weapons to the women,'' they chanted.

Fearing retaliation, Israel has gone on high alert since Yassin's death. Security has been stepped up throughout the country, and malls, restaurants and buses have been empty as people remain close to home.

The Israeli military went on the offensive in Gaza and along the Lebanese border to prevent Palestinian attacks. A total of four Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting.

The army said that troops had killed two armed Palestinian militants who had tried to infiltrate the Gaza settlement of Morag late Tuesday. Troops also confiscated a bag of explosives. Hamas claimed responsibility for the failed attack.

In the Khan Younis refugee camp, forces razed four Palestinian farms, partially demolished two houses and destroyed a road linking two parts of the shantytown during an overnight raid, Palestinian officials said. Early Wednesday, the troops withdrew from the area.

The army said it had removed some brush and two abandoned buildings that were used to fire on settlements. It said troops opened fire after being attacked by an anti-tank missile and gunfire. No casualties on either side were reported.

Late Tuesday, Israeli gunboats opened fire off the coast of Gaza, witnesses said. No one was hurt. The Israeli military said gunboats fired at a suspicious object at sea.

Around the same time, Israeli helicopters opened fire at guerrillas setting up rocket launchers aimed at Israel in south Lebanon, the military said. Lebanese officials identified them as Palestinians and said two were killed and one wounded in the Israeli airstrike.

On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry withdrew diplomats and their families from missions in the Arab countries of Qatar and Mauritania. The ministry said the decision was precautionary and it had not received any specific threats.
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There it is, the threat to assassinate Sharon. Welcome to all out war.

 

Every now and then you have a post that you feel like cancelling right after you push the button. My last one was one, of those, Mango.

I will try to respond to your l;ast and might I say substantive post that I failed to see as I was just reacting to the later one.

I will rsespond to the first one.

 

The total Arab population rose to 289 million last year

Thanks for the updated figure. 150 million or 289 million is not important for my argument that the approx 3.0 millin Israelis can't win a war of attrition against 150 or 289 million. It should be noted that there are also hundreds of millions of Muslims who aren't Arabs who are enraged about Israel's injustice to the Palestinians and the occupation. For instance Iranians and as we saw the large Muslim population in Indonesia and elsewhere.

The Likud party is definitely to the right in Israeli politics, but there are other parties such as: National Religious, National Union (coalition) that take a harder line on the Palestinian issue, so the overall Likud party isn't as extreme as you think.

I'm aware that there are more extreme parties very small parties. In addition much of the Labor Party and most Jews in the US, and some fundamentalists Christians are essentially backing Sharon and the type of murderous activities we are seeing. If nothing else under the policy of remaining largely silent. There are times when a whole society becomes pretty extreme. The fact that there are smal parties to the right does not justify his actions.

Sharon's desire to leave Gaza is part of his policy of building a wall to encroach on more land on the West Bank. He is trying to grab some more land and have a more fragmented and less viable Palestinian homeland. He is still not willing to follow international law or UN Resolutions, which of course were viewed at one time before the other numerous changes in rationale as suffcient to start a war in Iraq. Such hipocrisy is not acceptable for the rest of the world, even if sufficient for many in Israel and the US.

If Sharon is weak, and under pressure from financial scandals he should just resign. It does not justify more assassinations. Many other observers think that this assassination will just make Hamas more militant and lead to the loss of more lives including Israelis. It will weaken the Palestinian Authority. Soon even Sharon will not be able to continue the charade of calling for Arafat to control the militants in Hamas.

 

Umm, even more militant?

 

Yes...Rantisi is considered more militant than Sheikh Yassin was.

 

I have just read another person putting the <i>Arab</i> population at closer to 220 million. As I wrote previously, it depends on how people are classified.

Uh.......the population that you mentioned for Israel

Justify his actions? That is a point that could be considered correct on an idealistic level, but it doesn't seem viable on the practical level in Israel.

The Israeli political system seems to allow for coalition governments rather than the U.S. political system, which favors an <i>either</i> - <i>or</i> political choice. There are <i>small parties</i> in the U.S. political system and sometimes spoilers like Perot or Nader that can tip the balance in a close race, but it differs from an Israeli style coalition government.

Even though the rightwing parties have small numbers in the Knesset, by being part of the coalition, they gain an <i>audience</i> with the ruling group (Sharon/Likud) that they wouldn't get if they were a <i>smalll party</i> in the U.S.

An example from the national elections (2003) in Israel:
<hr color=blue>
<a HREF="http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/27/ip.pol.opinion.israel.labor/">Lessons on losing from Israel's Labor Party (January 2003)</a>

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I've been in Israel all week, watching the campaign leading up to Tuesday's election. Have I seen a Play of the Week? Not exactly, but I've seen a good lesson in how not to win the Play of the Week.

This year, Israel's Labor Party -- the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin -- has written the textbook on how to lose an election.

Here's ''How to Lose an Election'' by the Israeli Labor Party.

Lesson 1: Choose a new, largely unknown leader and give the voters eight weeks to find out who he is. That's what Labor did when it chose Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna as its leader November 19.

In the United States, Democrats have sometimes sprung previously unknown candidates on the voters -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton come to mind -- but voters had a year to get to know them, not eight weeks.

Lesson 2: Choose a dove when a major war is looming. Although Mitzna was a general in the Israeli army, he was the candidate of the left in the Labor Party. Many analysts here call Mitzna Israel's George McGovern.
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Mitzna wants Israel to withdraw from Gaza and resume unconditional negotiations with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Those positions are not unpopular with Israelis, but the timing could not be more wrong.
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Lesson 3: Insult the prime minister and run an ad suggesting that, because of corruption allegations, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is like "The Godfather."
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Lesson 4: Refuse to give the voters what they want. Polls show that what Israeli voters want is a government of national unity in which Labor works together with Prime Minister Sharon at a time of national crisis. But Mitzna ruled out any collaboration with Sharon. After this refusal, he immediately started sinking in the polls.
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Lesson 5: Try to replace your candidate at the last minute. Last week, a poll came out showing that the Labor Party would do a lot better if former Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, not Mitzna, were its leader. So some panicky Labor leaders called for Mitzna to step down -- one week before the election.

The Labor Party is now bitterly divided. Meanwhile, Sharon and his primary rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, have been making a show of sweet unity.

Follow all those lessons and -- just like Israel's Labor Party -- you will be sure to lose the election. Not to mention the political Play of the Week.

The future doesn't look too good for Israel's Labor Party either. A poll last week in an Israeli newspaper shows that, among first-time voters in this election, Labor's support is exactly zero. </i>
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For Likud (Sharon) to form a coalition government with Mitzna (Labor), Sharon would have had to agree to terms that were simply unpalatable and adopt ideas that were part of <b>Labor's</b> campaign platform. The rightwing parties joined Likud and Shinui to form the coalition government and Labor went into the <b>Opposition</b>. Labor won the second most seats in the elections, but small rightwing parties were the ones in the government and gained Sharon's ear. Recently, Sharon's talk about changing the Gaza situation has gotten Labor's attention and the rightwing parties have threatened to leave the coalition, but no change has happened yet.

I have read some commentary that Israelis would be hesitant to feel comfortable with a final deal negotiated between a Labor government and the Palestinians because Labor has been considered to be too <i>dovish</i>. Likud has a stronger <i>reputation</i> on security issues and the general population would likely feel more comfortable with a deal brokered by them.

Yes, I know that Sharon/Likud hasn't brought security & stability to Israell since they took power from Barak (Labor), but it is the perception of the Israeli population that matters. There does seem to be some realization by Israelis that Sharon/Likud hasn't improved the security & stability situation, but it takes time for perceptions to change noticeably.

Political situation:

Peres is getting up in years and Labor really hasn't developed any new faces.

Various Likud members are poistioning themselves to lead after Sharon leaves.

Yossi Beilin (recent Geneva Accords & Oslo negotiator) is considered an <i>idea</i> person, but there have been questiones about him being a leader. With his political party being to the left of Labor, it will be hard for him to be a power in an Israeli government in the near future.



Granted, Likud is less likely to give concessions to the Palestinians compared to the Labor party. If only they could have kept negotiating 4 years ago when Barak was in charge.

Sharon has been under investigation for <i>several</i> issues over the years and always seemed to scrape by. The stalling and legal challenging that the Sharon family is currently doing seems to be a continuation of that mindset. It just doesn't seem to be in his nature to <i>give up</i> as you suggest.

In regards to the weakening of the PA........ they have been on the skids for some time and Hamas has been gaining in popularity.

 

Justify his actions? That is a point that could be considered correct on an idealistic level, but it doesn't seem viable on the practical level in Israel

For some reason you seem to want to deal primarliy on the level of what is good for Sharon politically. That is sort of like discussing the war on terror or Iraq war strictly on the level what Bush sees as advantageous fo his reelection.

Idealistic? Israel not run by Sharon? or coaliton government? Just a couple of years ago for instance there was a coalition of Labor and Likud as you acknowlege.

You mention that 60% of the Jewish people who approve of this guy's murder. Interesting, probably 60% of Palestinians would approve of murdering Sharon.

As you acknowlege, Sharon's policies haven't led to less terrorism. Sharon's state of escalating the war of attrition to grab more land has not been good for the Israeli economy either.

Israelis were terribly deceived by Sharon. Frightened people are prone to be mislead by strongmen. Sharon, used Isaeli fear to long term goal of abolishing the Geneva and Oslo process as he wants to grab more land than those accords called for.

Similarly in our country. The people were mislead. Bush deceived and kept trying to imply that Iraq had something to do with Al Qaeda or 9/11, He failed to level and say there was at least a reasonable possibility of no wmd or if, as Rice and POwell, stated just a year or so previously, that Iraq was not a real threat
Similar to Sharon, Bush used people's fear to do his long desired goal of invading Iraq.

I agree that the Labor Party had a pitiful campaign. their big mistake was having a coalition with the brutal Sharon to begin with. They lost at least temporarily their identity. It is sort of what the Demcoratst did here, when they run too much as Bush lite.

I think we can agree on Sharon not being willing to give up despite financial scandals.

 

One other point. Some commentators believe that Sharon's overall effect has been to weaken Arafat and his forces and strenghten Hamas. Israelis who want a two state solution don't think that is a good thing.

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None of which explains why Israel chose to act now. (After all, if Yassin posed such a lethal threat to Israel, was it not a dereliction of duty for Sharon not to have "taken him out" three years ago?) The key to the timing is Sharon's plan for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the plan which has replaced the US-backed road-map as the only glimmer of possible progress. "We're not going to leave Gaza with our tails between our legs," says one high-ranking Israeli official.

Today's government believes former PM Ehud Barak erred by withdrawing from Lebanon apparently under fire - it made heroes of Hezbollah and emboldened Hamas. It is determined not to repeat that mistake. It wants to pull out in the context of a military victory, having "seared into the Palestinian consciousness" the futility of resistance against Israel.

That is why Israel's defence chiefs reportedly ended a five-hour meeting on Monday resolving to kill the entire Hamas leadership. The Israeli brass is anxious not to leave Gaza to become what chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon calls "Hamasland". Instead they will leave behind a crushed, decapitated Islamist movement. The message will be clear: this withdrawal was a "one-off". Further terrorism will not bring further Israeli withdrawals, there will be no domino effect: it will only bring fire on those who dare try it. Note Ya'alon's icy warning to Yasser Arafat and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that "their turn is drawing near."

Will any of this work? I doubt it. Israelis may feel better leaving Gaza having crushed the enemy (though heaven knows what fury they would have unleashed), but Hamas will still brag, with some justification, that their three years of "armed struggle" achieved more than seven years of patient negotiation by the secularist moderates of Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

That is not the only disadvantage of the unilateral pullout that Sharon has in mind. There are others - the PM will draw the borders that suit him, even if they entail a grab on Palestinian land and make a future Palestinian state unviable, the new border will have no international legitimacy, and will therefore provide none of the stability, security and recognition that both sides crave. But the greatest danger is the one that is playing out right now - that, once again, Sharon has strengthened the extremists, empowering not the makers of peace, but the bringers of war.

link

 

Which world do you live in exactly that broadcasts Palestinian deaths and doesn't do so for Israelis?

You are talking bull****. I live in an Arab country, and even though it should be biased here, you hear way more about it when Israeli civilians die than when Palestinian civilians die.

Ahmad Yassin is a major figure, and if you wanted his death to just swiftly pass everyone by you are sadly mistaken.

People need to understand this: Israel doesn't want a seperate state, and Palestine doesn't want a seperate state. Israel wants the whole thing, and Palestine wants the whole thing. Ofcourse, no one's going to go all out and say it, but that's the truth.

Anyone who says "Oh, Palestinians are willing to live in peace but Israel isn't..." is just being naive. None of the sides want to live peacefully with each other. If anyone thinks that Palestinian Muslims and Israeli Jews will ever live peacefully and side by side, they're just wrong.

I hate to say it, and I hate to believe it, but that's the truth.

It doesn't matter what the Arab population is right now because the rich countries with the resources will be too busy getting the benfits from their oil. When the spiritual leader of Iran is one of the richest people in the world (unofficial, but very true believe me), he's not going to sacrifice his spot by waging war on American-supported Israel. So right there you lose almost 100 million people from the Muslim population that should be helping with this war.

 

Did I hear that correctly?

 

Which part should I elaborate on?

 

Yes.

 

You want 100 million more people to be involved in a war, because they happen to be part of the same religion?

 

It is, after all, a war of religions. If the majority of Palestinians didn't follow the Qura'an or if the majority of Israelis weren't Jews, there would be no war because none would claim to be fighting for "their" land.


I'm not proposing all Muslims join this war right now, I'm just correcting the notion that there are 300 million people available to fight this war. Do I think Muslims should be helping their fellow Muslims durnig this struggle? Hell yes. Do I think they should go to war on Israel with 100's of millions of Muslims? Nope.

 

So they should be "helping" - please explain what you mean by that. You say there is a war and all Muslims should be "helping". How does that not equate advocating that all Muslims should wage war against Israel? Just for tactical reasons?

 

Sending aid, bringing them here, offering shelter, sending money, going there and building stuff for them..

You know what, you can nit-pick (sp?) all you want in my arguments, but just say whatever you want to say. I think that more people SHOULD be fighting for Palestine.

 

That's not really helping in the "war", as you first put it. You are backtracking because you know you would get heat here if you came all out with your opinion. I don't trust you. You seem to be misguided, and you are not distancing yourself clearly enough from extremists when I read stuff from you like pictures of children with guns were "taken out of context".