Article in sais review · January 005 doi: 10. 1353/sais. 2005. 0011 citations 49 reads 3,483 authors

The Role of Assassination
On the background of our conception of “assassination” (as presented in
the first section) and our principles of the military ethics of fighting ter-
ror (as partially and briefly presented in the second), we turn now to a dis-
cussion of some major issues related to acts of assassination that have taken
place within the framework of the current conflict between Israel and Pal-
estinian terror organizations.

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SAIS Review W
INTER
–S
PRING
2005
An assassination has been defined as an act of killing a prominent
person selectively, intentionally, and for political (including religious) pur-
poses. Hence, in order to determine whether a certain act should count as
an assassination, one has to determine whether it involves each ingredient
required by the definition.
Usually, the first two ingredients are given: a person has been killed
who has been of prominence at the time of the killing. During the current
conflict, two additional ingredients are also given when responsibility is
being claimed for the act under consideration. The last ingredient, the pur-
pose of the act, remains to be determined. At this point a distinction should
be drawn between two different senses of the term “political purposes.”
According to the broad sense of the term, “a political purpose” is a pur-
pose of significantly changing the system of powers in the arena of inter-
national relationships or the arena of intra-national relationships. Hence,
military victory on the one hand and viable peace on the other hand are
political purposes in the broad sense. According to the narrow sense of the
term, “a political purpose” is one of significantly changing the system of
powers in the arena of international relationships during peace or of the
arena of intra-national relationships.
The difference between a political purpose in the broad sense of the
term and a political purpose in the narrow sense is crucial. Assassination
for a purpose of the former kind is sometimes justified, morally and ethi-
cally, whereas assassination for a purpose of the latter type is never justi-
fied, from the same points of view. Broadly, the purpose of eliminating a
danger to the life of citizens, when jeopardized by terrorists, is political and
justified when governed by the principles of the military ethics of fighting
terror, as presented in the second section of the paper. Under certain con-
ditions, specified by those principles, an assassination is morally and ethi-
cally justified when it is an act of killing a prominent person, selectively
and intentionally, for the purpose of self-defense. However, within the
framework of intra-national relationships or international relationships
during peace, there is no moral or ethical justification for changing the sys-
tem of powers by killing a prominent person. Within the intra-national
arena, the moral principles of democracy and their legal implementation
delineate pursuits of political change in a way that excludes assassination.
Within the international arena during peace, the moral principles that per-
tain to international relations
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and international law preclude assassination.
During the current conflict between Israel and Palestinian terror or-
ganizations, the issue of assassination was raised after each and every act
of pre-emptive or preventive killing of a Palestinian terrorist. However, one
should not be misled by such attempts to use the negative connotation of
the term “assassination,” as often done by politicians and reporters. Almost
all acts of pre-emptive or preventive killing of Palestinian terrorists have
not involved persons of prominence. A genuine discussion of acts of assas-
sination and their moral, ethical or legal justification has been pertinent
only when people were killed who were of prominence, such as Ahmed
Yassin or other so-called “political leaders” of terror organizations.

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A
SSASSINATION
AND
P
REVENTIVE
K
ILLING
The distinction between the political leadership of a terror organi-
zation such as Hamas and the operative leadership is moot. Portraying a
person as a political leader, even if correct, as in the case of Yassin, does
not mean he does not belong to the operative leadership as well, as again
in the case of Yassin. Persons making operational decisions to carry out a
planned act or activity of terror are regarded by our Principle of Distinc-
tion (B.2) to be directly involved in terror (b.8), as are persons making gen-
eral operational decisions related to acts or activities of terror (b.9). To be
regarded by our Principle of Distinction as only indirectly involved in ter-
ror, and hence as such never as a justified target of an act of pre-emptive
or preventive killing, a person involved in political, social or religious lead-
ership of an organization that has a terrorist arm ought to have no per-
sonal involvement in decision-making processes directly related to acts or
activities of terror (b.14).
During an armed conflict, self-defense is a political purpose, and kill-
ing prominent persons who are involved in making operative decisions con-
cerning acts of terror is morally and ethically justified as an act of self-de-
fense, under conditions of military necessity (B.1).
To be sure, acts of self-defense can be pre-emptive, where the danger
is imminent, or preventive, where there is an ongoing process that jeopar-
dizes people but not imminently so. Both pre-emptive and preventive
strikes are governed by the same principles of Military Necessity and Dis-
tinction, among others. Both pre-emptive and preventive strikes are tacti-
cal. They are not governed by a strategy that is meant to gradually change
the general situation. They are professional means of providing citizens
with effective defense against terror acts, the use of which is governed by
moral and ethical principles such as B.1 and B.2.
It is important to avoid confusing necessary tactical acts with those
that are optional and strategic in nature. After the targeted preventive kill-
ing by Israel of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the successor of Yassin, the claim has
been made that as a result of Rantisi’s killing, “the names of his succes-
sors will remain secret. They will plan more terror attacks from the under-
ground. They will be more difficult to
identify.”
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Notice the ambiguity of the
claim. If it is understood on the tactical
level, it is a comment on the mode of op-
eration. However, assuming that the act
of killing Rantisi was governed by our
principles, then it was an act of military
necessity and could not be replaced by
another act that would both leave Rantisi
alive and the name of Yassin’s successor
public, on the one hand, and still provide
citizens of Israel effective defense against acts of terror planned and car-
ried out by Rantisi and under his control, on the other hand. If the same
claim is understood on a strategic level, it is a comment on the long-range
effects of such acts of pre-emptive and preventive killing: will terror thus
It is important to avoid
confusing necessary
tactical acts with those
that are optional and
strategic in nature.

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