A barbaric, criminal action, Hassan A. Barari

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THE ISRAELI ill-advised decision to assassinate the spiritual leader of Hamas is shocking and immoral. It is a blatant attempt to enfeeble the moderate people in the Arab world and particularly on the Palestinian side. Who will have faith in the peace process from now on? Who will defend even the need to establish peace with such a fascist regime in Tel Aviv? Who will believe that this move was intended to guarantee the Israeli security? Who could have believed that the wheelchair-bound Sheikh Ahmed Yassin posed a threat to the security of the Israelis?

All the above questions are valid. The Israeli justification that Yassin is just another Ben Laden and that the Middle East is safer with him being eliminated is totally ridiculous.

I have no doubt the Middle East is much safer without Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the right-wing thugs in his Cabinet. Ever since they assumed power, the region has known no stability. Even the Europeans believe that the world is much safer without Sharon, as an opinion poll carried out several months ago showed.

Few among us would not agree with the most radical forces in this part of the world when they say that the rest does just not understand the Israelis who are not interested in peace and are fooling everybody while expanding their territories at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians.

The criminal action by the Israeli government has shattered our faith in Israel's genuine desire to have peace with its neighbours.

The Israeli government decision is a clear invitation for the Palestinians to carry out another series of deadly suicide bombings. Put differently, Sharon is simply inviting the Palestinians to kill more Israelis. What a shame! Yet, we should not lose our focus due to this unprecedented quick pace of events. The assassination was not meant at all to improve the security of the Israelis. It was meant to preempt the possibility that the Palestinians would ever get their house in order in Gaza before Israel redeploys its forces from the strip.

Sharon is seeking to create anarchy in Gaza by depriving the Palestinians of an effective leadership. The Palestinians would then be portrayed as incapable of running their own daily life. The Egyptians, according to this reasoning, would interfere in Gaza to assume a security role. If this works, Sharon would ask the Jordanians to play a similar role in the West Bank. In other words, Sharon has been seeking to de-Palestinise the Palestinian cause. Israeli pundits have written on this issue sometime ago but were not taken seriously.

Another objective is that the Israeli government doesn't want to be seen as running from Gaza as the Barak-led government did when it withdrew unilaterally from south Lebanon. Regardless of the real motivation behind Sharon's decision to eliminate Yassin — who will not be the last one to get assassinated — this action is not going to have the result that Sharon has been hoping. The Palestinians have proved that in time of crisis they can get organised. No anarchy, I hope, will ensue if Sharon implements his disengagement plan from Gaza. Although the Egyptians are trying to help both parties in the peace process, it would be inconceivable for Egypt to play a security role, let alone an administrative one, in Gaza.

Equally important, Jordan has been trying to resume the peace process as the best guarantee to its core interests. Time and again, Jordan made its position clear and there is no reason to assume otherwise.

In short, it is hard to see how this move would help the Israelis. Sharon has pushed the region to another critical and dangerous juncture. By assassinating Yassin, all taboos have been removed. Palestinians who felt constrained by many considerations will find themselves in a life or death situation and many Israelis, undoubtedly, will pay with their lives for Sharon's stupid action.