Israel's Head-hunting Addiction: Assassinations Are No Substitute for Diplomacy - Opinion - Haaretz.com
Israel has turned head-hunting into its core strategy in its fight against the forces of evil. Various Israeli government officials, as well as media commentators speaking on their behalf, express satisfaction at every bit of news about the elimination of some senior figure in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Not to speak of the killing of many more junior terrorists in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and even further afield.
Undoubtedly, many of those killed are bad individuals. It's likely that getting rid of at least some of them, perhaps even most, averts or prevents terror attacks, and otherwise further complicates efforts to carry them out.
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To some extent, targeted killings also serve the understandable Israeli need, especially pronounced after October 7, to take revenge at the brutal assailants as well as to demonstrate that the Israeli campaign against them is on the right track, warranting the sacrifices current circumstances exact of most Israeli society.
The funeral of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, in January.Credit: Mohamed Azakir / Reuters
Nor should one belittle the remarkable intelligence and operational accomplishments that both facilitate carrying out targeted assassinations and make it possible to minimize noncombatant casualties that might otherwise accompany them.
That said, Israel would be well advised to learn from its own past experience, as well as from that of others. It is a grave mistake to base the entire national strategy of conflict on sustained campaigns of killings and assassinations.
Such policy not only runs the risk of failing to realize the hoped-for gains from such operations, but worse still, it might also prove utterly counterproductive. Assassinations are an efficient, at times essential, tactical and operational war-fighting tool, but they do not constitute a strategy. In this context, it is advisable to internalize as soon as possible several notes of caution.
First, the threshold for carrying out assassinations inevitably lowers as more of them are conducted, thereby increasing the odds of harming ever larger numbers of noncombatants. This, in turn, triggers widespread global outrage and undermines the perception of the legitimacy of Israel's struggle and the soundness of its judgement.
A billboard displays a portrait of slain Iran's Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi with a slogan in Hebrew saying, "You will be punished", earlier this month.Credit: AFP
Second, it is a false hope to expect that sustained assassination campaigns will diminish the number of those who seek to do harm to Israel. Those who are killed are quickly replaced, and the motivation of the new recruits to avenge the death of their comrades often becomes even more powerful.
Even those among us who firmly believe in the "mowing of the grass" doctrine, do confess in rare moments of sincerity, that the "grass would have to be mowed" regularly and even then wild brush would keep on growing and expanding in its midst.
Third, we are injecting ourselves into an endless cycle of violence and killings on all sides that gradually spans the globe, one in which we, at the end of the day, only stand to lose being far fewer and more vulnerable.
Mourners carry the coffin of senior Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil during his funeral procession in the village of Khirbet Selm, south Lebanon, January.Credit: Hussein Malla/AP
Fourth, only rarely do such targeted killings yield deterrence benefits. In most cases they produce no deterrence gains, and in many cases they actually trigger the opposite result: expanding and broadening the cycle of violence, and a gradual escalation in the scope of Israel's enemies, war fronts, the list of targets and methods of operation considered legitimate to accomplish them. This, in turn, produces a "boomerang effect," since Israel's enemies subject themselves to far fewer ethical and legal inhibitions, which greatly expands their freedom of operation.
Fifth, one must not underestimate the cumulative psychological damage sustained engagement in massive targeted killing exacts of its perpetrators, which trickles over time to their society writ large, leading to devaluing of human lives not just of the "other" but also toward "others" in one's society. There are some in our midst who may welcome such an effect, but the sane majority must view such a prospect with considerable alarm.
Sixth, the marginal utility reaped from killing enemies as a means to satisfy the public desire for revenge for the atrocities they had committed against you diminishes over times. Same for its value in projecting political and military gains that presumably bring one closer toward a "total victory."
Seventh, and most importantly, bloodletting is no substitute to having a strategy. It can, and at times must, be a part of it, so long as its limitations are well understood, and its use confined to where and when it's absolutely indispensable. We need to recognize that its marginal utility as well as its costs and damages are bound to diminish over time.
All of these limitations and drawbacks of targeted killings as a strategy and dominant mode of operation are amplified in the absence of a fully fledged concept of what should come after the violent struggle and complement it. Given that wars are a continuation of politics by other means, their ultimate results are measured not in battlefield gains (in killing, destroying, and conquering) but in their ability to produce a path toward an improved strategic and political realities thereafter.
Palestinian girls walk past a mural depicting late Hamas leaders Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantissi and Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, 2022.Credit: MAHMUD HAMS - AFP
Targeted killings cannot be a substitute to formulating and pursuing arrangements that will bring an end to the fighting, or at least channel and focus it solely on those areas where they are absolutely necessary. The willingness to put up with their use, reaping their maximal benefits, and minimizing their drawbacks all hinge on the existence of such a complementary component in the national strategy, which in today's Israel is totally absent.
True, there are those in Israel who are too myopic to appreciate that targeted killings do not make for a strategy. Far more clairvoyant others see them as an unavoidable interim measure until the country escapes the political paralysis it is stuck in and comes to its senses.
Both, however, inadvertently play into the hands of those who see us immersed in an all-out open-ended war, doomed to live by the sword. Among the latter are those who define all Palestinians as either current or potential terrorists, not to mention their view that Arabs as a whole are our enemies.
If the latter gain the upper hand (because we acquiesce with current trends) we will evolve into a very different state and society. Thus, we must not let killings become a substitute to our pursuit of adequate coexistence arrangements, first and foremost with the Arab population in our midst as well as those Palestinians in the territories who are amenable to forging a historical compromise. Otherwise, future progress toward such accommodation will prove entirely impossible.
Ariel (Eli) Levite is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.