ASSASSINATION AS A TOOL OF STATE CRAFT    10^th September 2003

By kazi anwarul masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

ISRAEL POSES GREATEST THREAT TO WORLD PEACE     6^TH NOVEMBER 2003

By kazi anwarul masud (former Secretary and ambassador)

Unsurprisingly the Europeans have expressed their belief that Israel poses the greatest danger to world peace. But surprisingly the US has been bracketed along with North Korea and Iran as the second biggest threat. The third, fourth and fifth places go to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Predictably the Israeli government has urged the European Union “to stop the rampant brainwashing against and demonizing of Israel before Europe deteriorates once again to dark sections of its past”. Emotional blackmail has always been the hallmark of the Zionist propaganda machinery. If one were to recall the famous movie Ben-Hur( of Charleton Heston fame) one would remember that Ben-Hur  defeated the dreaded Messala by riding a chariot provided by an Arab Sheikh in the chariot race and that the Arab Sheikh was castigated by the Romans for helping a Jew. Perhaps the Jews have reason to be sensitive because Adolph Hitler believed that “by warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work” or that Romans considered them as Secta Nefaria (inferior sect) and that Martin Luther branded the Jews and the Papists as “ungodly wretches” and Pope Innocent III wrote in 1200 A.D. “the Jews like Cain are doomed to wander the earth as fugitives and vagabonds, and their faces are covered with shame”. But then one must also not forget Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus Christ to be sacrificed at the Cross which brought upon the Jews thousand years of persecution mainly at the hands of the Christians.

But the recent Eorobarometer poll describing Israel as the biggest threat to global peace  has nothing to do with anti-Semitism which the Zionists are ever willing to hurl upon any one slightly critical of Israel. The latest victim of Zionist propaganda has been Mahathir Mohammed for his description of the Jews as ruling the world by proxy and for criticizing the Europeans for excising “Muslim land to create the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem”. And today Ariel Sharon has forgotten that the Balfour Declaration favoring “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” was predicated on the assurance that “nothing will be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. The world has also forgotten Winston Churchill’s 1923 statement on behalf of the British government that the Balfour Declaration must not mean “imposition of a Jewish nation upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole but the further development of the existing Jewish community”. Forgotten are the assurances given by the colonial masters of the day without realizing that for decades they are getting inextricably linked with a problem pregnant with apocalyptic potentials of incessant violence. Little did the British had realized then that one of their breakaway colonies would acquire such preeminence that not since the Roman Empire any nation has as much economic, cultural and military power as the United States has today. The Economist described the American colossus dominating global business, commerce and communications with a military might second to none. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin found American progress as having gone beyond super-power status while truimphalist Robert Kagan felt present day international system was being built not around a balance of power but around American hegemony. Prefacing his book The American Paradox Professor Joseph Nye (of Harvard) emphasized that US military role was essential to global stability and as a part of US response to terrorism. But he warned that suppressing terrorism would take years of patient, unspectacular work, including close civilian cooperation with other countries. But US policy of total support to Israel and its penchant to interpret any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism continue to widen the gulf with Europe and produce frustration in the Muslim world. Professor Pnina Werbner of Keele University who closely studied Muslim Diaspora in Britain found the Diaspora Muslims after the nine-eleven becoming “symbolic victims of global mythology, caught in a spiral of alienation and ambivalent identification that no local protestations of innocence could counter”. Thanks to western panic an obscure Islamist named Osama bin Laden could successfully stigmatize millions of Muslims as supporters of a transnational “Islamism”—a brand of modern political Islamic fundamentalism which claimed to recreate a true Islamic nation by imposing the sharia in all aspects of the society.

To the ordinary westerner’s eyes nine-eleven created moral panic about Islam, multi-culturalism and toleration of difference.  This precipitated “loyalty debate” which was difficult to end unless one was convicted of sedition or terrorism.  The spiraling progressive alienation of the Muslim Diaspora in the west caused by privileging Muslim identity would take a long time to heal. Professor Werbner concluded that Muslim Diaspora in the west are doomed to constantly negotiate the parameters of minority citizenship by subscribing to the Islamic juridical position that since western democracies allow freedom of worship, Muslims can owe complete allegiance to the State, defined as “Land of Treaty”. Only a small minority may feel discomfort because of their belief that permanent settlement in the “Land of the Unbelief” is forbidden in Islam. (The predicament of Diaspora and millennial Islam: reflections in the aftermath of September 11—Pnina Werbner, Professor of Anthropology, Keele University).

Euro barometer poll on Israel as the biggest threat to world peace holds out the promise of light at the end of the tunnel for the Muslim world in the face of Bush administration’s obduracy to refuse to see the other side of the coin. War on terrorism, repeatedly endorsed by the entire Muslim world, should not be translated as war on Islam. Though protagonists have tried to convey this message to the Muslims such assurances appear hollow to the target audience because of protean nature of western policy towards the Muslim world. Valid reasons can be found for the disbelief of the Muslims if one would glance at the US-Israeli relations which have direct impact on the Islamic ummah. Firstly, US economic and military assistance to Israel constitutes thirty percent of the total US aid budget. Israel has a per capita income of $14000/- and is ranked as the sixth richest country in the world. In addition to the $3 billion given annually Israel since the Gulf war in 1991 is being provided with $2 billion loan guarantee. Besides there is “consequential” aid of $1.5 billion tax deductible donations from Jewish and private sources to Israel. Between 1949 to 1998 US has given Israel $84 billion as aid which is more than the amount given by the US to sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean countries combined. It has been argued that US support to Israel was conditioned by the surrounding of Turkey, a NATO ally, by Syria and Iraq, then Soviet allies as well as Israeli proximity to the Suez Canal which provided some measure of security to American shipping through the canal. Such logic notwithstanding one must recognize the failure of the Muslim Diaspora in influencing US policy despite the fact that the number of Muslims in the US approximates the number of Jews in that country. It is believed that in the last Presidential elections 70% of the Muslims had voted for President George W Bush. This demonstrates the failure of the Muslims to act as a bloc as opposed to the vibrant World Jewish Congress whose political clout is universally recognized.

The failure of the Muslims to excite in the west support for their cause has fuelled state terrorism by Israel against unarmed Arabs. With ferocious intensity Israeli armed machinery is brutalizing the people forcibly occupied by them. The brutality perpetrated under the pretext of providing security to its own people had reached genocidal proportion long time ago. UN Secretary General had characterized Israeli muscularity as a “bankrupt” policy which can breed only hate and desire for revenge by the wronged. David Held (of London School of Economics) found the intensity of the range of responses to the atrocities of nine-eleven understandable. Shock, revulsion, horror, anger, and desire for vengeance was perfectly natural, David Held felt, within the context of the immediate events. Yet he counseled for defensible, justifiable, and sustainable response consistent with the principles and aspirations of the international society for security, law and impartial administration of justice. In the case of unceasing Israeli brutality inflicted upon the Palestinians every day, notwithstanding many censures by the UNGA and UNSC, it is surprising that the world community is yet to see the direct relevance of the principle laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that when international rules that protect basic humanitarian values are in conflict with state laws, then every individual must transgress state laws in favor of humanitarian values. Since people no longer live in discrete national communities but in Held’s terminology in “overlapping communities of fate” the state of Israel and its supporters must be held accountable for their actions. If sovereignty can become divisible, limitable, non-exclusive and of reduced significance in cases like Kosovo, Rwanda, Panama, Chile and others ; why should it not be so in the case of Israel—an implanted state whose security and territorial integrity are being repeatedly assured by her Arab neighbors? European people, if not their governments, deserve appreciation for their astuteness in finding out that Israel is indeed the greatest threat to world peace and security. European youth no longer wants to beholden to a dark past but desires the ushering in of a millennium, described by Norman Cohn as implying the end of suffering, an apocalyptic, redemptive moment, the final destructive struggle in which tyranny is overcome and history is brought to consummation.

Edward Said, lauded as “among the truly important intellectuals of our century” by Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, described the imperial perspective as “that way of looking at a distant foreign reality by subordinating it to one’s gaze constructing its history from one’s own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate is to be decided not by them but by what distant administrator think is best for them”. Said who has a life long attachment to novelist Joseph Conrad (his first book was titled Joseph Conrad and his fiction of autobiography) defined imperium in Conradian language as “the conquest of the earth which mostly means taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter nose than ourselves”. If one were to assume that post-Iraq war Middle East and particularly Palestine have been “taken away” and have to be “retained” by designating some people as “marked for death” and Ariel Sharon’s frequent demands for the expulsion of Yasser Arafat, the elected President of Palestine and recognized as such by most of the people, from his own homeland then one starts wondering about the methods to be used for the elimination of the “recalcitrants” in the US-Israeli eyes.

Despite the absence of a uniform definition of terrorism the horrendous events of nine-eleven have focused the global attention to its elimination by all means and as expeditiously as possible. There is universal agreement that the key elements of terrorism are unlawful violence perpetrated against non-combatants intended to coerce or to intimidate governments and/ or societies in pursuit of political, religious and ideological goals. Terrorism s inherently political and to Jessica Stern (of Harvard University) “deliberate evocation of dread is what sets terrorism apart from simple murder or assault”.

Zealots, Jewish religious-political faction, known for their fanatical resistance to the Roman rule in Judea in the first century AD, were perhaps the earliest known terrorists who adopted assassination as the primary tool of resistance to the Roman rule. Eleventh century Shia Muslim Assassins and the Indian Thugees( from seventh till mid-nineteenth century) also used assassination as justifiable method of expression of their beliefs, though Colonel Sleeman’s account of the Thugees provides more a portrayal of banditry than offering to the Hindu goddess Kali. Though some anarchists accepted terrorist policy and practiced assassination, by and large the anarchists believed in the highest attainment of humanity through total freedom of expression unhindered by any form of repression or control from without. In effect, anarchism as a political theory was opposed to all forms of government.

The main point of enquiry of this article is to enquire into the legality of assassination as a tool of state craft. Emmerich de Vattel (Law of Nations—1758) defined assassination as “treacherous murder”. Treachery can be elicited from the Hague Convention IV as having the following features; - (a) feigning a desire to negotiate a truce or surrender flag; (b) feigning incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) feigning civilian non-combatant status; and (d) feigning protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations, neutral states or other states not a party to the conflict (Legality of Saddam Hussein’s assassination—Sebastian Jodin—Quid Novi on line). Because assassination is generally committed through treachery political thinkers through out the ages found it abhorrent. In the 17^th century Alberico Gentili was against assassination because he found no honor in killing through treachery. Hugo Grotius, the father of international law, condemned assassination by treacherous means. Emerich Vattal found it contrary to law and honor. Hague Convention on Laws and Custom on War especially forbade killing or wounding treacherously individuals belonging to hostile nations or army. As with every proposition there are dissenting voices. Professor Louis Rene Beres( of Perdue University) holds the opinion that though assassination is normally illegal under international law yet limited support for assassination can be found in Aristotle’s Politics, Plutarch’s Lives and Cicero’s De Offices. Prof. Beres argues that (a) no crime without punishment is a sacred principle of international law; (b) where known perpetrators of crimes can not be punished through normal judicial remedy ( i.e. extradition and prosecution) the criminals have to be punished extra-judicially , and assassination may be the least injurious form of such punishment; (c) the right of self defense as codified in article 51 of the UN Charter and customary right of anticipatory and preemptive attack could include assassination as a distinct law enforcing measure. Justification sought in assassinating foreign leaders must have the two essential invariants that they must be terrorists and their crimes can not be remedied through normal judicial process.

As opposed to Hobbesian world where life was “ solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” the world has now attained the state of liberal democracy which in Francis Fukuyama’s eyes may constitute the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and final form of human government and as such has constituted the “end of civilization”. Although Fukuyama does not suggest that occurrence of events, even large and grave ones, will cease, it difficult to ignore Samuel Huntington’s hypothesis “ that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or economic. The great division among human kind and dominating source of conflict will be cultural”. Long before Huntington inspired forensic investigation of his hypothesis historian Bernard Lewis( The Roots of Muslim Rage—September 1990—The Atlantic Monthly) wrote about clash of civilizations between Islamic and Western civilizations partly because, he wrote, “ Islam was never prepared , either in theory or in practice, to accord full equality to those who held other beliefs and practiced other forms of worship”. According to Lewis the struggle between the two rival systems has now lasted for some fourteen centuries. It began with the advent of Islam in the seventh century and has continued virtually till today. As a continuum of this rivalry one could interpret the Iraq war, but not the Afghan war which was waged to oust the Talibans who by allowing its territory to be used by Al-Qaida defied UNGA definition of aggression(1974) which does not entitle any country to allow its country to be used by a terrorist organization to bring harm to another country, a result of the inter-civilizational struggle now that that the raison d’etat for the war ( WMD  and its under one hour delivery by Saddam Hussein ) has become controversial.

The central point of this present enquiry—legality of assassination—has still remained unresolved. In 1981 President Reagan issued an executive order prohibiting any person employed by or acting on behalf of the US government to engage in or conspire to engage in assassination. The order was a codification of an earlier policy laid down by President Ford in 1976. Since an executive order is not a law it can be changed by another executive order. In October last year White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer publicly advocated political assassination as a means of realizing US foreign policy goals. Though Bush administration officials later claimed that Fleischer’s assertion did not change the 26 year old ban on assassination they however pointed out that the ban did not apply to Iraqi dissidents of Saddam Hussein. An article titled “ Can we put the leaders of the Axis of Evil in the crosshairs” published in Parameters( Fall 2002) of the US Army War College indicated that the debate on assassination had not abated. The article asserted “Under the current circumstances assassination may prove to be a more frequent and necessary means of countering the asymmetric threat our nation will continue to face”. The article went on to argue that murder would be a justifiable weapon against leaders of “rogue states”.

Though it is upheld that assassination would be illegal under international law, many legal experts suspect that it may not be illegal because most terrorist leaders fall under the category of “illegal combatants” who are denied the benefits granted to legal combatants under the Geneva Convention on War. Michael Walzer, writer of seminal Just and Unjust War of the Princeton University argues that assassination of terrorist leaders may be legal  because it would be illogical to label terrorist camps as legal targets for elimination while granting immunity to the persons planning and training terrorists. Regardless of the debate constancy remains on targeted killing of political leaders during war time if they become part of the command and control structure of the warring parties.

The US has a history of targeted assassination and/or attempts thereof particularly during the second half of the last century. Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, was murdered at the instigation and with the help of the CIA. In 1960 Eisenhower administration ordered the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to forestall his attempts to draw his country closer to the Soviet Union. In 1961 Kennedy administration sanctioned the overthrow of Iraqi dictator General Abdul Karim Quasem. At least eight different attempts by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro failed. Coup against Chile’s Salvadore Allende was supported by the Nixon administration. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and Che Guevara were killed at the instigation of the US authorities. Example may also be cited of the Reagan administration’s air strikes to kill Libya’s Qaddafi in which his baby daughter was killed. US apparently stopped such operations as a result of public outcry following revelation of these facts by the Senate sub-committee on Intelligence headed by Senator Frank Church. Besides it was found that political assassinations invite counter assassination attempts and fuels anti-Americanism disproportionate to the gains garnered by the elimination of “delinquents”. Historical data shows a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and increase in terrorist attacks on American targets.

In recent days Israeli target attacks on Palestinian militants forced the resignation of Abu Mazen as Prime Minister on whom the US had pinned high hopes for implementation of the Middle East Road Map. Apart from the fact that Yasser Arafat has been forcibly confined to his Ramallah quarters

( he was not allowed to attend the funeral of his sister who died recently) and Israeli tanks and helicopter gun ships constant attacks on Hamas and other Palestinian militants and consequent death and destruction wrought on innocent civilians in the name of “collateral damage” continue; surprisingly Edward Said’s “imperial Perspective” refuses to take into account the cyclical effect of Israeli aggrandizement. It has to be recognized by the regnant authority that undue expression of Israeli muscularity by putting Palestinian leaders in the crosshairs may bring momentary satisfaction to the trigger happy but historical blizzards would see such orgiastic display of muscle power with scorn. If the Western world is truly interested to establish peace in the Middle East then it has to put a leash on its sentinel in the East unless the West is convinced, now that the ideological rival has been put to flight,that the time has come to resume inter-civilizational war between Islamic and Judeo- Christian forces.