Does Israel Have A Right To Assassinate Leaders Of The Palestinian Intifadeh?

By Amos Oz; David Grossman

YES

By Amos Oz

In wars throughout history armies do kill enemy soldiers. This is an unfortunate but universal fact of life. Was Abu Ali Mustafa an enemy soldier or just a political or an ideological figure? I don't know. I think that in this horrible battle Israel is entitled to defend itself, though not by hurting or killing innocent civilians, not by killing politicians, ideologists or even dreadful inciters and agitators. With a heavy heart, I justify the killing of Palestinian fighters, uniformed or not, but of no one else. The term assassination is a very misleading one. Killing unarmed civilians is assassination; killing fighting Palestinians or active terrorists is self-defense, and I justify it.

The criticism of what Israel is doing is too comprehensive and undiscriminating, as criticism often is. Israel deserves very serious criticism when it kills civilians. Israel does not deserve criticism when in a state of war it kills fighting enemies. In principle, when a country is attacked, it can choose among three ways: it can indiscriminately kill the "others," it can turn its other cheek to its enemies, or it can fight back against those who carry weapons. I prefer not to fight at all, but if there is a war I definitely prefer the last way.

I have always emphasized that I am a peacenik, not a pacifist. I never suggested that if Palestinians seriously want to kill the Jews, we should let them do it. I always suggested that the Palestinians deserve an independent state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza. As things stand now, I have the impression that they want more than that. I do not accept the idea that the universal right of self-defense does not apply to Israel. If the Palestinians only want an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, I would grant them such a state tomorrow. Last summer at Camp David, Israel and Palestine were just a few inches away from a two-state solution. I think a two-state solution is going to materialize sooner or later. That's why I regard this war as insane: everybody knows what the result will be.

I disagree with my closest friends on where to draw the line, and sometimes I disagree with myself. But you can't get two Israelis to agree with each other; it's difficult to get one to agree with himself. The conflict is not a black-and-white issue. Americans may be educated to conceive of black-and-white conflicts; they demand to know right away who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The clash between Israeli Jew and Palestinian Arab is essentially a tragic clash between right and right, between one very powerful, convincing cause and another no less genuine, no less powerful cause. Hence the need to resolve it in a compromise. I know the word compromise has a dreadful reputation in many circles in America. It's a euphemism for dishonesty or opportunism. Not so in my vocabulary. For me, the word is synonymous with the word life, and the opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

Novelist Amos Oz is a prominent figure in the country's peace movement. He is the author of a collection of essays, Israel, Palestine and Peace, and of novels, including The Same Sea

NO

By David Grossman

The way things are now between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, every act of folly can be justified by the deed that preceded it. The situation is so violent and chaotic, and seems so inexorable, that both sides feel they are bound, even doomed, to respond with ever increasing force to each enemy action.

The attack on Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was, however, foolish and dangerous, even within this tangled context. It was an act of revenge meant, first and foremost, to bolster Israeli deterrence. It was also aimed at dealing a blow to Palestinian morale, one that would force the Palestinian Authority to talk with Israel.

Neither of these goals was achieved. It seems to me that it shouldn't have been difficult to guess that the action would achieve the precise opposite and only make matters worse.

Let me state without hesitation, however, that Israel has every right to defend itself. If official spokesmen for the Palestinians declare that they intend to send dozens of suicide bombers to Israeli city centers, they should hardly be surprised that Israel responds with a lopsided display of force aimed at foiling such deeds and impeding their perpetrators. When Palestinian leaders declare that Israel has "crossed a red line," they sound disingenuous. After all, it is they who have encouraged acts of indiscriminate mass murder of innocent citizens, children and infants within the borders of the state of Israel. Apparently we have all become so callous, have become so accustomed to the unbearable lightness of death in our region, that we need to remember that to murder a human being, whether Israeli or Palestinian, is blatantly to cross a red line.

Nevertheless, even as the heart churns at the site of seven innocent murdered Israelis--the act that led to the attack in Ramallah--I remind myself of a few simple truths.

Violence will not bring peace, only more violence. Killing influential leaders will not eliminate their beliefs or support of their ideas. It will do the opposite. You can't break a people's spirit by hitting its leaders. On the contrary. I also remind myself, and Israel's leaders, that a conqueror who does not open a window of hope to the conquered cannot, with an entirely clear conscience, lecture them for being pushed, more and more, into a desperate and violent extremism.

So, in the current circumstances, Israel and the Palestinians must show less "creativity" in killing and attacking each other and more in seeking a resolution of the conflict. Both parties must resume negotiations unconditionally. Without negotiations we will all be helplessly caught in a spiral of murder and revenge. Without hope, we will all be doomed to be battered time and again by the deadly symptoms of our disease until, perhaps very soon, we will find ourselves powerless to treat the illness itself.

--Translated by Haim Watzman

David Grossman, one of Israel's pre-eminent commentators and novelists, is the author of The Yellow Wind, a book about the first Palestinian intifadeh, and the novel See Under: Love