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SIXTY-TWO years ago the
British Government pulled off one of its most daring wartime coups in the
heart of Nazi-occupied Europe. A team of four agents, backed by the Czech
Government in exile and trained by MI6, succeeded in assassinating
Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia whose brutal
rule had earned him the title, "the Butcher of Prague".
In January 1942 he had presided at the Wannsee Conference which initiated
the Holocaust. But on May 27, 1942 he was ambushed by Czech fighters as he
drove out of Prague. The Nazi state accorded Heydrich a magnificent
funeral and Hitler mourned a soulmate whom he considered "irreplaceable".
The Germans then inflicted a terrible revenge, making an example of the
Czech village of Lidice, killing every male over the age of 16.
Targeted killings are, as you can see, morally fraught. The assassination
of Heydrich deprived the Nazi killing machine of one of its spiritual
leaders. But that strategic gain was secured at the price of a backlash,
in which innocent lives were lost.
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin raises its own moral questions.
Like Heydrich, the Sheikh was the intellectual organiser of a mass murder
campaign directed against Jewish civilians. The organisation he set up in
1988, Hamas, has been responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths,
including the killing of at least 20 young people outside the Dolphinarium
disco in Tel Aviv in June 2001, the murder of 15 people at the Sbarro
pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 and the bombing of a commuter
bus in Jerusalem in June 2003 which claimed another 15 lives.
These killings have been in pursuit of an ideological agenda as
uncompromisingly anti-Semitic and as spiritually dedicated to violence as
National Socialism itself. Hamas believes that Israel has no right to
exist, Palestine must be purged of the Zionists from the River Jordan to
the Mediterranean Sea and a fundamentalist Islamic state erected on its
territory. The Hamas covenant proclaims: "there is no solution for the
Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and
international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours."
The covenant also makes clear who are to be targeted, the Jews, who are
held responsible, inter alia, for both world wars, control of the world
media and the creation of "Zionist organisations under various names and
shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups, and others".
Yesterday, the BBC correspondent, Zubeida Malik, described Sheikh Yassin
on The World At One as "polite, charming and witty, a deeply religious
man". On the same programme the Arab journalist Abdul Bari-Atwan, editor
of the influential newspaper Al-Quds, memorialised him as "a moderate man
in his way".
Some people in the BBC may consider it witty to call for the elimination
of the Jewish people from their homeland. Others might consider it the
charming hallmark of a deeply religious man to recruit, incite and inspire
young men to kill civilians. And clearly it is no bar to success in Arab
journalism to define as "moderate" someone who thought the Jews started
both world wars and continue to run the globe through their manipulation
of the media and the all-powerful Rotary International. I may therefore
risk putting myself out on a limb in the media community saying this, but
I'm afraid I find the ambition to wipe Israel off the map repellent, the
worship of death indefensible and efforts made to halt Hamas's
uncompromising campaign of terror completely understandable. I can no more
mourn Sheikh Yassin's death, in all conscience, than a Briton could have
shed an honest tear for Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.
But what will the consequences of Israel's actions be? Might this
assassination lead to a backlash that could be avoided? It is a question
that should weigh heavily on Israel's Government, and on all of us who
have a moral stake in fighting fundamentalist terror.
I'm inclined to agree with the view Jack Straw outlined in The Daily
Telegraph on Saturday. The Foreign Secretary argued that weakness in the
face of fundamentalist outrages was more provocative than a strong
counter-attack. Referring to al-Qaeda's activities throughout the 1990s he
said, "the evidence was very clear that Osama bin Laden was becoming
increasingly emboldened by the lack of reaction". Mr Straw now concludes
that "we should have hit al-Qaeda sooner".
The evidence from the Middle East reinforces the point. Whenever Israel
has been perceived as irresolute, as when Ehud Barak withdrew from
southern Lebanon in 2000, the terrorists have drawn the conclusion that
their violence is working. Perceived Israeli weakness led to an escalation
of Palestinian violence, with Yassir Arafat's launch of the second
intifada a few months later.
Now that Ariel Sharon is withdrawing forces from the Gaza Strip, the risk
is that a similar conclusion, that Israel is weakening and violence is
working, will be drawn. In such circumstances the best means of ensuring
that terrorists do not feel emboldened is to make sure that those who
organise the terror campaigns lose by their actions.
And that prompts a final question. What would have been more likely to
hearten Heydrich's comrades in arms at his funeral in June 1942?
International condemnation of reckless British action and a global demand
that Winston Churchill resume talks to tackle Germany's longstanding
grievances? Or an implacable commitment to fight democracy's enemies until
those bent on genocide laid down their arms?
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