“Since World War II Israel has assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world.” With that simple, chilling statement Ronen Bergman prefaces his comprehensive history of Israel’s policy of state-sanctioned murder of perceived enemies. For years, Israel has assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner in defiance of international law and international boundaries as well.
Bergman’s book is comprehensive, well-written and highly revealing. Despite a “complex array of laws and protocols,” including “strict military censorship” and sharp limitations on press freedom, the effort to maintain secrecy over the history of the assassination program failed, enabling him to write the book. How could this happen? Because, Bergman explains, it turns out, “Everyone wants to speak about what they’ve done.”
For decades Israel’s secret intelligence service, the Mossad, under direct supervision of the prime minister, has carried out targeted assassinations in multiple countries. Israel’s assassinations have killed many opponents, but they have also killed scores of innocent bystanders. Israel typically exercised caution about killing innocent people during its operations in Europe, but “as long as the targets were located in enemy countries, and as long as the innocent civilians were Arabs, the finger on the trigger became quicker.”
Israeli patriarch David Ben-Gurion cultivated secrecy and kept a tight personal rein on Shin Bet, the internal security service modeled on the FBI, as well as on the Mossad. The trope “state security” was invoked to justify illegal activities ranging from arbitrary arrest and torture to assassination, all of it done as the “sole democracy” of the Middle East kept the public in the dark. Even when actions did become public, policies did not change. After he perpetrated the notorious Qibya massacre in October 1953, killing 69 innocent Jordanian villagers, Ariel Sharon nonetheless “was given free rein to use special forces and secret units to unearth and kill [alleged] terrorists.”
The intensity of Israel’s targeted killings accelerated in the wake of the post-1967 occupation and the increased Palestinian resistance and guerrilla assaults on Israelis. Following the deaths of its athletes at the 1972 Munich games, Israel broadened authorization to assassinate “in effect, anyone suspected of belonging to the PLO.”
Targeted killings accelerated after the election of Likud leader Menachem Begin. Israel attacked scores of Palestinian targets with hit squads, car bombs, and even explosives strapped to donkeys and sent into Arab marketplaces.
Unable to grasp the causes and implications of the Intifada in 1987, Israeli security forces responded with arrests, torture, demolition of homes, and targeted killings. As Hamas grew in popularity, Israeli security forces began to kill its leaders. Israel botched an attempted assassination of Hamas’ Khaled Meshal, who was injected with poison but survived.
In the wake of 9/11, the “global war on terror” enabled Israel to normalize its shoot to kill policies. Israel began publicizing the targeted killings, some of which were carried out by the new lethal technology of drone attacks. In 2000, Israel approved 24 targeted killings; the number rose to 84 in 2001; 101 in 2002; and 135 in 2003.
A former head of Shin Bet invoked Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase “banality of evil”—which she had used to describe Adolf Eichmann’s calm demeanor at trial as he related his complicity in the Nazi genocide—to describe Israel’s business-as-usual approach to targeted killings.
Overall, however, Israeli society generally supported targeted assassination and often celebrated its accomplishments. Despite the undemocratic and capricious nature of the targeted assassinations, as well as the many blunders that he chronicles, Bergman concludes on a patriotic note, arguing that targeted assassinations “triumphed” over terrorism.
While Bergman’s conclusions are highly subjective, there is no question he has provided a valuable service by meticulously chronicling the long and sordid history of Israel’s state-sponsored terror attacks.
(Source: Walter L. Hixson, Washington Report-1/10/2019)
