No Immunity: Israel's Policy of Targeted Assassination

"We will continue the targeted killings at this pace," Mofaz stated. "No one will be immune."

Mofaz's comments were made in response to Israel's air-strike against two Palestinian suspects yesterday in Gaza City. The attack killed three bystanders"one child and two teenagers.

The Defense Minister used the attack to warn the new Hamas cabinet that the same strategy will be applied to leading members of the government if suicide-bombings in Israel resume.

Is Mofaz right? Is gangland violence making Israelis safer?

There's reason to suspect that he is not only wrong, but that he may be putting Israeli citizens at greater risk. Targeted assassination is a disastrous policy; a policy which defines the parameters of extremism and lawlessness.

Let's forget for a moment that innocent people are invariably killed in these incidents and that these planned executions take place on city streets where passersby are forever traumatized by bloody state-sponsored murder. Let us simply address the issue of whether or not the safety of Israelis or anyone else is ever enhanced by discarding the law and conferring absolute power on the state to decide who lives or dies?

We already know that hard-right members of the Likud as well as their American counterparts believe strongly in the practice. The Bush administration has never wavered in its support for the arbitrary killings even though a botched missile attack in Pakistan last month by an unmanned CIA-drone killed nine innocent villagers. The administration stubbornly refused to even issue an apology for their mistake.

The tragic loss of life never stirred any debate as to whether the practice was morally or legally justifiable. And, why would it?

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