Terrorist States and Stateless Terrorists

In 1947, the area that is currently the state of Israel was divided into a Jewish and a Palestinian state, according to United Nations Resolution 181. Upon Israel’s declaration of independence, the surrounding Arab nations of Jordan and Egypt immediately launched attacks on the Israeli state. Despite the fact that the still-born Palestinian state had no part in the attacks on Israel, most of the fighting occurred outside of Israeli borders in the Palestinian partition. When the fighting ended, the UN-established Palestinian state was split up and occupied, with Israel controlling large sections, Egypt gaining control of the Gaza Strip, and Jordan occupying the West Bank. This occupation of the newly established Palestinian state, which was swallowed in the fighting between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, was the first violation of U.N. resolution in which Israel used the Palestinian lands as bargaining chips for making the peace with their neighbors.
In June of 1967, Israel launched attacks against Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, taking control of the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The ensuing occupation of these territories, which were initially partitioned by U.N. Resolution as Arab states, was the birth of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With the unanimous passage of U.N. Resolution 242 in November of 1967, the Israeli “acquisition of territory by war” was condemned, and the U.N. called for the “withdrawl of Israeli armed forces from the territory occupied in the recent conflict.” Israel proceeded to thumb its nose at the resolution, pointing to a technicality of the wording in the resolution, and refusing to restore the occupied territories.
In response to this occupation, the remnants of the Palestinian government formed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which worked toward a two-state solution to the conflict, as originally delineated by U.N. Resolution 181. In December of 1987, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip launched an uprising called the Intifada, in which guns and knives were banned. This uprising called for the establishment of peacefully co-existing Israeli and Palestinian states, in line with the platform of the PLO. Under the command of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli forces responded brutally, killing hundreds of Palestinians. After the Intifada eventually lost its cohesion under the weight of Israeli oppression, individual Palestinians began to use violence against the Israelis, and the violent organization Hamas, originally supported by Israel as a counterweight to the PLO, gained popularity.
The Oslo Accords, worked out under U.S. supervision, eventually established very limited autonomy for the Palestinians, but did not grant sovereignty of any sort to the Arab Palestinian population. Israel also predictably refused to re-establish the borders of Resolution 181 in any form.
In September 2000 Ariel Sharon, a member of the Israeli Parliament, along with a thousand-member security force, visited the Al Aqsa mosque, an important religious site in Palestine. The following day Israeli leader Barak sent another large group of soldiers and police to the area, and when Palestinians responded by throwing rocks at the Israelis, the soldiers opened fire on the group, killing four and wounding hundreds. This resulted in the Second Intifada, a rebellion that started with demonstrations in which Israeli forces killed a number of Palestinians, while Israeli forces endured not a single serious casualty. After a period of subdued fighting in which few Israeli casualties were incurred, the fighting escalated and terror bombings became more frequent and deadly. The violent resistance group Hamas, which had gained popularity by providing welfare and social services to suffering Palestinians, gained power as Israeli forces continually targeted residential areas, killing hundreds of civilians and destroying critical infrastructure necessary for the survival of the Palestinians.
Given this background, it is now necessary to assess the legitimacy of the group Hamas, as well as the PLO and other Palestinian organizations that have championed violent resistance to the Israeli occupation, in the context of international law, while keeping in mind the principles of asymmetrical warfare. Granted the overwhelming military power of Israel, any attempt by Palestinians to engage in traditional warfare against Israeli occupation would be doomed to failure. Knowing this, Palestinian resistance groups have engaged in asymmetrical or fourth generation warfare, intended to induce political and psychological volatility among Israel and the international community. This warfare has often taken the form of “terrorist” actions that target the civilian population of Israel.
It is important, however, to recognize the fundamental differences between Hamas and other more purely terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda.
Whereas al Qaeda indiscriminately targets the civilians of sovereign nations in the name of Islamic fundamentalism and the destruction of western society, Hamas consists of the remnants of the deposed Palestinian government, and works for the welfare of the Palestinian people, while also fighting against the illegal occupation of what was established by the U.N. to be an Arab Palestinian state. Additionally, Hamas has launched attacks exclusively against the occupying Israeli state, and has not launched offensive or unprovoked attacks against any nation. The methods employed by Hamas are unquestionably wrong, but are no worse in their civilian costs than those employed by Israel. While the intellectual, civilized Westerner might look in disgust at the suicide bombings perpetrated by Hamas, what must be recognized is that the use of such “terrorist” tactics are a hallmark of asymmetrical warfare, and would be entirely legitimate (and more effective) if they targeted military forces. The tactic of targeting civilians, be it by Hamas or the state of Israel, however, is inexcusable. The well-documented use of terrorist tactics by the Israelis (bombings of residential areas, opening fire on unarmed assemblies, etc) does not justify retaliatory terrorist actions by Hamas or the PLO. The state of Israel and the opposing Palestinian groups are currently caught in a violent downward spiral of terrorism and retaliatory state terrorism with no end in sight.
Putting aside the equally unacceptable methods of Palestinian terrorism and Israeli state terrorism, in the context of international law and the demands put forth by U.N. Resolutions 181 and 242, the “terrorist” groups Hamas and the PLO are fighting a defensive war for the independence of their state, and the state of Israel is nothing more than an illegally occupying force. The illegal acquisition of Palestinian territories by Israel, and the continued refusal to discontinue this occupation, places Israel in violation of numerous U.N. Resolutions condemning the acquisition of territory by war.
The recent killing of the crippled, elderly Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin by Israeli forces outside a mosque in Palestine has only further inflamed this dynamic of endless terrorism and oppressive military terrorism. Not only was this attack tasteless in its religious implications (the assassination taking place as Yassin was leaving worship at a mosque), it was also detrimental to the peace process and will likely do more to strengthen Hamas than to weaken it. By making Yassin a martyr, Israel has reinforced the potentially deadly and virulent extremist tendencies in many poor, oppressed Muslim youth throughout the world.
The current debate as to the legality of the “targeted killing” of Yassin has mainly centered on issues of Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism, or the implications of such extrajudicial killing of terrorist organizers. In concentrating on these issues, the debate has completely missed the point. The state of Israel and the leaders of Hamas are both responsible for the killing of scores of civilians. Whether in the name of national defense against terrorism or terrorist action against occupation, the tactics employed by Israel and Hamas are equally unacceptable. The killing of Yassin is illegal in the same sense that every military action by Israel within Palestinian territories is illegal. In the same sense, every terrorist action by Hamas is illegal insofar as it violates acceptable rules of warfare.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are no heroes, and there are no victims except for the civilians who are caught in the violent exchanges of terrorist states and stateless terrorists. These things considered, one must question why the United States has vetoed a formal condemnation in the U.N. of Israel’s attack. In fact, one must question why those so quick to war in the name of one U.N. resolution are so willing to defend the violation of another.