Jumping To Conclusions

As expected, everyone on the planet, except the United States, has rushed to condemn Israel for killing terrorist leader Ahmed Yassin of Hamas.

• [Jack Straw of the UK]: "We therefore condemn it. It's unacceptable, it's unjustified and it's very unlikely to achieve its objective," he said.
  
• France has condemned the killing, also describing it as against international law.
  
• [Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller]: "As you know we are against extrajudicial killings. Terror and violence and retaliation is not the way ahead," he said.
  

Yeah, whatever.

Of course, it's just going to increase the "cycle of violence," and similar cliches. On the other hand, not killing him hasn't solved anything, now has it? Why is everyone so sure that something which has never worked -- pretending that there's a "peace process" -- will work, while being certain that killing those opposed to the peace process will "escalate" the situation?

But that aside, the (official) European complaint is that they oppose "extrajudicial" killing. Well, assuming for the sake of argument that they're right as a matter of law, how about as a matter of practicality? How many people -- on both sides -- would have died if Israel had tried to arrest Yassin? How big a force would Israel have had to send, just to protect itself? How much of Gaza would they have had to level? How many would have defended Yassin?

Is anybody naive enough to think that Israel wouldn't have been equally -- if not more strongly -- condemned for that approach? Remember the outcry over the Jenin massacre/hoax?