(The Age-Australia) Alan Dershowitz - The targeted killing of Sheikh Yassin was a moral and lawful instance of pre-emptive self-defense. Yassin was a combatant under any reasonable definition of that term, and combatants - including leaders - are appropriate military targets during a war of the kind Hamas has declared against Israel. The international condemnation of Israel for defending its civilian population against a self-proclaimed terrorist leader sends a dangerous message to terrorists around the world: namely, that a democracy that targets a mass murderer who has sworn to continue his killing rampage is to be condemned as morally indistinguishable from a tyrannical terrorist group that targets innocent civilians.
2004-04-02 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive