Haaretz Has One Less Reader

Can We Celebrate the Death of Evil People? BY DENNIS PRAGER

We live in a time very different from any in the past. As a rule, little changes in basic human responses. For example, it is probably fair to say that throughout human history, just about all decent people have celebrated the death of those human beings understood to be truly evil. It takes a lot to change such basic human reactions. But over the last generation, a major attempt to do so has been made. And it has somewhat succeeded. Osama bin Laden, a man whose purpose in life was to inflict death and suffering on as many innocent people as possible — the more innocent his victims, the greater his achievement — was finally killed, and much of the Western world’s religious and secular elite has expressed moral annoyance with those who celebrated this death. The argument is that no person’s death should be celebrated. Therefore celebrations of bin Laden’s death are morally questionable. Pastor Brian McLaren, named one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America” in 2005, expressed this view. Reacting to television images of young Americans chanting “USA! USA!” on the night bin Laden’s death was announced, the pastor wrote, “I can only say that this image does not reflect well on my country. … Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?” Another example: CNN reported the reaction of an Episcopal priest, Danielle Tumminio, whose Long Island neighborhood lost scores of people in the 9/11 attacks. When she saw images of Americans celebrating, “My first reaction was, ‘I wish I was with them.’ … My second reaction was, ‘This is disgusting. We shouldn’t be celebrating the death of anybody.’ It felt gross.” Likewise many Jews, including rabbis, have cited traditional — though sometimes seemingly conflicting — Jewish attitudes regarding the death of evildoers. One frequently cited source is a famous talmudic one: “When the Egyptians were drowning in the Sea of Reeds, the angels wanted to sing. But God said to them, ‘The work of my hands is drowning in the sea, and you want to sing?’ ” Also noted is that at the Passover seder, Jews for centuries have taken drops from their cups of wine as they enumerated the Ten Plagues suffered by Egyptians. The Jews’ joy shall not be unalloyed. And the biblical Book of Proverbs states, “When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, let your heart not exult, lest the Lord see and be displeased, and turn His wrath away from him.” On the other hand, the Talmud also states, “When the wicked perish from the world, good comes to the world.” And the Book of Proverbs states, “When the wicked perish, there is joyful song.” So what is one to make of this mixture of sentiments? I do not see them as contradictory. God may chastise angels for singing at the drowning of the Egyptian army. But God does not chastise Moses and the Children of Israel for singing at the Egyptians’ drowning. People may do so; angels may not. Secondly, it is one thing to celebrate the fall of one’s personal enemy; it is quite another to celebrate the fall of evil individuals. The two Proverbs citations are not contradictory. The vast majority of our personal enemies are not evil people. Therefore we should not exult at their downfall. And the vast majority of the truly evil are not our personal enemies. Bin Laden was not my personal enemy. He was the enemy of all that is good on earth. It seems to me that if one does not celebrate the death of a truly evil person, one is not celebrating the triumph of good over evil. I do not see how one can honestly say, “I am thrilled that bin Laden can no longer murder men, women and children, but I do not celebrate his death.” Yes, I know one can argue that bin Laden’s arrest and life imprisonment would have also prevented his murdering anyone else. Indeed, anyone opposed to capital punishment would have to prefer that bin Laden had been captured and tried. But no one could argue that a dead bin Laden is less likely to provoke further terror than a living bin Laden. Celebrating the death of bin Laden is a moral imperative. The notion that Islamists who celebrated 9/11 are morally equivalent to Americans who celebrated bin Laden’s death is the product of a morally confused mind. It places the killing of 3,000 innocents on the same moral plane as the killing of the person responsible for those murders. The British historian Andrew Roberts, whose history of World War II was published last week, has summed up the situation well: “My countrymen’s reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden have made me doubt my pride in being British. The foul outpouring of sneering anti-Americanism, legalistic quibbling, and concern for the supposed human rights of our modern Hitler have left me squirming in embarrassment and apology before my American friends. … Britons utterly refuse to obey the natural instincts of the free-born to celebrate the death of a tyrant. When the Mets-Phillies baseball game erupted into cheers on hearing the wonderful news, or the crowds chanted ‘USA! USA!’ outside the White House, they were manifesting the finest emotional responses of a great people.” When you spend as much time as Roberts has studying real evil, that’s what you write. When you spend your life in Britain or America and know little about real evil, you write about how wrong it is to celebrate the death of people like bin Laden. All those rabbis and others who think it immoral or un-Jewish to celebrate bin Laden’s death will one day have to confront a Jew named Arie Hassenberg, a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau. As quoted by Holocaust historian Saul Friedlander, after one of the Auschwitz sub-camps (Monowitz) was bombed by the Allies, Hassenberg’s reaction was: “To see a killed German; that was why we enjoyed the bombing.” Was Hassenberg’s reaction wrong or un-Jewish? I don’t think so. What I suspect distinguishes Hassenberg from those who lament celebrating the death of the truly evil is that Hassenberg experienced true evil. Dennis Prager’s nationally syndicated radio talk show is heard in Los Angeles on KRLA (AM 870) 9 a.m. to noon. His latest project is the Internet-based Prager University (prageru.com).

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Double standard when fiends slain

On March 22, 2004, a rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter gunship terminated the life of the terrorist leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. As expected, world reaction was swift and almost unanimous in its condemnation of Israel.

Yassin, a founder of Hamas, was a virulent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demagogue who repeatedly called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Among his more memorable statements are “Reconciliation with the Jews is a crime” and Israel “must disappear from the map.”

In 1989, Yassin was arrested by the Israelis for masterminding the abduction and murder of Israeli soldiers and was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in 1997 he was released in a prisoner exchange on the condition that he refrain from continuing to initiate suicide bombings against Israel.

In violation of the terms of his release, Yassin resumed his leadership of Hamas and immediately started a campaign of suicide bombings against Israeli civilian targets. After years of masterminding several appalling terrorist attacks on Israel, his reign of terror was finally brought to an end by the helicopter attack in 2004.

In a display of unwarranted antipathy to Israel, and a denial of its right to self-defence, countries of the world united in condemning the Jewish state. A brief survey:

The European Union issued a statement condemning Israel’s “extra-judicial” assassination of Yassin.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the assassination as a violation of international law.

The UN Human Rights Commission passed a resolution condemning Israel. It was approved by 31 votes in favour, two against (the United States and Australia) and 18 abstentions (including most of the EU countries.)

French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hervé Ladsous said: “France condemns the action taken against Sheik Yassin, just as it has always condemned the principle of any extra-judicial execution as contrary to international law.”

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called it an “unlawful killing.”

Japan called Yassin’s killing a “reckless act” that “cannot be justified.”

New Zealand called the assassination counterproductive to Middle East peace efforts.

Malaysia called the killing of Yassin “state terrorism” by Israel and claimed that it would “only escalate further the cycle of deadly violence.”

In contrast, the same countries, so quick to beat their breasts in moral outrage at Israel’s actions, have reacted quite differently to the assassination of Osama bin Laden by the United States:

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, reflecting generally positive reactions among EU leaders, said, “we have woken up to a more secure world.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “The death of Osama bin Laden ... is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.”

In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy praised the “tenacity” of the U.S. in tracking down the al-Qaida leader and described his death as “a major blow to international terrorism,” adding that victims of al-Qaida terrorism “received justice today.” Foreign Minister Alain Juppé opined that bin Laden’s death is a “victory for all democracies fighting the abominable scourge of terrorism.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that bin Laden’s death would “bring great relief” around the world.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto said: “I pay respect to the U.S. officials concerned.”

Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he hoped that the death of bin Laden would help bring universal peace and harmony.

Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno hailed the death of bin Laden as “a very important advancement in the war against terrorism.”

Ahmed Yassin was responsible for some 425 brutal and cowardly attacks on Israel civilians carried out by Hamas. At least 377 Israelis were murdered and 2,076 wounded in the 3½ years preceding his death.

Comparing the number murdered in Israel by Hamas to the number murdered in the World Trade Centre on 9/11, a rough calculation shows that approximately one in 18,500 Israelis were killed, while the comparable figure was one in 102,000 Americans. Yet to its great shame, the world laments the death of the murderer of Jews while lauding the U.S. for assassinating bin Laden.

It is time for the world community to abandon this double standard and to accord to Israel and Jews everywhere the same right of self-defence that is claimed by every other people on the face of the globe.

LAZERBEAMS: Rav Wolfson on the Death of Bin Laden

In a recent lecture, Rav Moshe Wolfson shlit'a, the esteemed mashgiach (spiritual Dean) of Yeshivat Torah V'Daas said that the fall of a nation is preceded by the fall of it's sar, or administering angel. Once the sar falls, then the nation will fall. This is based on the Zohar (section 2, page 18a - LB) which says that what the Jews saw on the banks of the Red Sea suf was the sar of Egypt dying. Yishmael has 12 sarim (plural for "sar").
Rav Wolfson was also quoted as saying (on Monday after morning prayers), "Osama bin Ladin, being the biggest danger to the entire world, had the biggest sar of Yishmael. During these past few weeks as we saw so many entrenched arab leaders, heirs of Yishmael, fall, it is apparent that their defending sar has already fallen and they will continue their downfalls. It is a great thing when sarim fall. The Princes of Yishmael are falling. Bin Laden had their biggest sar. The way the Maharal puts it, he does not have to be a direct descendant of Yishmael. Bin Laden is from the culture of Yishmael."
The Mashgiach goes on to reference the Zohar which says that when Moshiach comes there will be 2 seven day Passovers - Pesach Mitzrayim, like we have now, and Pesach Moshiach, the Passover of Moshiach. Pesach Moshiach will start on the last day of our current Passover - Pesach Mitzrayim - and will celebrate the miracles involved in the coming of Moshiach.  This is why the haftorah on the last day of Passover deals with Moshiach.  Pharoah's final fall was on the last day of Passover. Bin Ladin was killed on last day of this second Passover, the Passover of Moshiach!  It also happened during the second week of Counting of the Omer, which corresponds to stern judgment, or gevura.
The article that was forwarded to me ends with another quote from the Mashgiach. "The time is very auspicious.  The sitra achra (Dark Side) is falling. The Gemara says that when the ox falls down, slaughter him then and there.  The sitra achracan now be removed. If Jews will concentrate on serving Hashem, purity, and holiness, we can bring the Geula - the full Redemption of our people - because the time is opportune for it."

Thousands of demonstrators in Istanbul protested against the death of Osama Bin Laden on Friday, while setting fire to the flags of the United States, Israel and Britain

Palestinians condemn killing of 'holy warrior' bin Laden

Patt Condell on Osama

Osama Bin Laden's watery grave captured

We kill Bin Laden, Israel Targets Hamas: Why Does The World Community Condemn The Jewish State? by Alan Dershowitz

 Imagine if Israeli commandos had crossed the border into Syria or Lebanon and shot the heads of the terrorist groups - Hamas and Hezbollah - that constantly target Israeli civilians. Or say they managed to track down and kill a top Hamas leader in Dubai. How would the world react to such a cross-border targeted assassination?

Wait! We already know. Israel did in fact assassinate several terrorist leaders in the Gaza Strip, and did allegedly conduct another covert operation in the United Arab Emirates. These terrorists had orchestrated the murder of more Israeli civilians, as a percentage of its population, than the number killed by Osama Bin Laden. But when Israel neutralized an ongoing threat against its civilians by targeting terrorist leaders for assassination, the international community - most particularly the European Union and the United Nations - was apoplectic.

Let's sample a few reactions from around the world at the time. The French Foreign Ministry declared "that extrajudicial executions contravene international law and are unacceptable." The Italian foreign minister said, "Italy, like the whole of the European Union, has always condemned the practice of targeted assassinations." The British foreign secretary said, "So-called targeted assassinations of this kind are unlawful, unjustified and counterproductive." The Jordanians said, "Jordan has always denounced this policy of assassination and its position on this has always been clear."

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared, quite unequivocally, "that extrajudicial killings are violations of international law." Have you ever heard such unanimity in global opinion?

The fact that none of these convenient critics of Israel has dared challenge the wisdom or legitimacy of the assassination of Bin Laden by the United States lays the double standard bare: Israel is the one country whose right to defend itself is systematically questioned.

What the United States did in Pakistan stretched, but did not break, the loosely defined bounds of international law. Bin Laden, like the terrorist leaders of Hamas, was a combatant under any reasonable definition of that term. Under the rules of warfare, he was an appropriate target of a kill-or-capture operation. As long as he did not try to surrender, he could be shot the way an ordinary soldier can be shot during a combat operation.

Likewise, when Israel singles out terrorist leaders or organizations for military action, they are acting well within the bounds of customary international law. Nations throughout history have engaged in similar acts of proactive self-defense without criticism.

But Israel risks condemnation every time it seeks to defend its civilians. There are resolutions by the United Nations, Goldstone reports and threats to haul its leaders in front of international and domestic courts.

The broad consensus among reasonable people is that the United States acted properly in going after Osama Bin Laden, who had murdered thousands of innocent Americans in cold blood. This action, and its widespread approval, has now become part of customary international law. When Israel engaged in similar actions, the international community condemned them as outside of international law.

When President Obama comes to Ground Zero today, he will be appropriately applauded not only by most Americans but by most reasonable people around the world. His actions made the United States and the world a bit safer from the scourge of international terrorism.

Likewise, when Benjamin Netanyahu comes to Washington, he, too, should be applauded for making the world and his own citizens a bit safer. We must have one standard in judging military actions. Both the United States and Israel have helped to create that standard by seeking to balance the need for aggressive actions against terrorists with compliance to the rule of law.

Dershowitz is a professor at Harvard Law School.

Bin Laden dead: video animation

Bin Laden lived it up in Pakistan

Reporters Still Confusing Osama with Obama

There’s something about winning BY DAVID SUISSA

I’ll never forget sitting with a group of intellectuals several years ago, at the height of the messy war in Iraq, and discussing why President Bush and America had fallen so low in the esteem of the world. One great mind after another offered sophisticated analyses. My head was spinning.
Finally, someone piped up: “Everything would be different if Bush were winning the war.”
At which point a distinguished professor from Israel said: “This is brilliant! Bush’s real problem is that he’s not winning!” I sat there, slightly stunned, thinking: How can something so complicated lend itself to such an easy insight?
I reflected on that insight the other night when President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden after a nearly 10-year pursuit. Here was a president who had suffered relentless criticism for his handling of foreign affairs. And now, as Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on his blog: “Our President, in the blink of an eye, has gone from a hyper-criticized, seemingly-swamped possibly-one-term leader to an American hero, a commander-in-chief who calmly oversaw the killing of the greatest mass murderer in American history.”
And why did he become a hero? Not because he made one of his inspiring speeches or announced a brilliant new policy.
He became a hero because he got a win. It’s as simple — and as complicated — as that.
We love to teach our kids that life is not about winning and losing but “how you play the game.” That may be true when you’re dealing with people of good faith. But when you’re dealing with people who are out for blood, it’s a good idea to know how to win.
Naturally, Jews and Israel have always been juicy targets for people out for blood. So, how should one deal with such aggression?
I found a wonderful answer last week in a shoe store, of all places, on trendy St. Denis Street in downtown Montreal. The French Canadian owner of the store, who has been there for 25 years, decided last year to carry a woman’s shoe line from Israel called Beautifeel. Well, wouldn’t you know it, within a few months, a vicious boycott campaign was under way against the store, led by a popular local politician, Amir Khadir.
To give you an idea of the tone of their campaign, one of the boycotters’ leaflets had an oversize image of a woman’s shoe stomping on a pile of buried naked bodies — reminiscent of those horror shots of emaciated bodies you see in Holocaust documentaries. Written on the shoe was “Beautifeel. Made in Apartheid Israel.” On top was the headline, in French, “Boycottons la boutique Le Marcheur” (“Let’s boycott the boutique Le Marcheur”).
Week after week, the boycotters recruited large and noisy crowds to hand out the leaflets and implore people not to enter Le Marcheur. Their mission was to pressure the owner, Yves Archambault, to stop carrying the Israeli shoe line so that the neighborhood would be “apartheid free.” But Archambault refused, out of principle. It didn’t seem right to him that he should be told how to run his business. His business suffered, but he held firm.
The story hardly ends there. The Jewish community in Montreal got wind of the boycott and went nuts. A “buycott” campaign was launched, and Jews from all over the city came to buy shoes at Le Marcheur. A woman bought a hundred pairs. Archambault became a local hero.
Meanwhile, creative minds went to work producing counter leaflets mocking the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement as “Boycott Derangement Syndrome,” explaining the discrimination and hypocrisy inherent in the movement. These leaflets gave people the Israeli side of the story. Archambault did his own research and found out that the Israeli shoe company (besides making great shoes!) hired women, minorities and Palestinians and treated their employees very well. The Quebec General Assembly drafted a unanimous resolution condemning the boycott and supporting the store.
And what happened to the initiator of the boycott, Amir Khadir? He went low-key and stopped coming to the demonstrations. Apparently, he concluded that the backlash might not be good for his political future.
I tell you this story not to remind you of the insidious global movement to demonize the Jewish state. That’s old hat by now. I’m telling you this story because it’s a tribute to the noble virtues of fighting back and winning.
Too often, we recoil at the idea of fighting. It leaves a bad taste in our mouth. We dread the thought of “lowering ourselves to the level of mudslinging.” We prefer notions like “engagement” and “bridge building.”
But the nasty boycotters of St. Denis Street who used Nazi imagery to malign an Israeli shoe company were not looking for engagement or bridge building. They were looking for blood — and a victory.
Faced with such aggression, how else to respond but to fight back?
Yes, in such cases, life is a zero sum game. One side wins, and the other side loses. The Jewish community of Montreal, with the support of a brave French Canadian shoe merchant, fought back ferociously and smartly against what it perceived as a grave injustice to the State of Israel. And, guess what — they won.
It’s not as dramatic as taking down bin Laden, but we’ll take it.

Osama Bin Laden's Final Message To His Children: 'Im Sorry For Neglecting You'

The Huffington Post  Mark Hanrahan  First Posted: 05/ 4/11 02:13 PM ET Updated: 05/ 4/11 02:20 PM ET

A Kuwaiti newspaper has published slain Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's last message to his wives and children.

The four-page document is a will, dated December 14, 2001, months after the 9/11 attacks that made him the most wanted man in the world.
In it, Bin Laden apologizes to his children for his absence in their lives, "You, my children, I apologize for giving you so little of my time because I responded to the need for Jihad," he writes.
He also instructs his children not to follow in his footsteps - specifically telling them not to join Al Qaeda. He cites precedents from Islamic texts as a justification for forbidding his children to engage in 'holy war'. The UK's Daily Telegraph reports that Omar bin al-Khattab, the successor of the Prophet Mohammad as Islam's leader, also left written instructions to his son, Abdullah, not to wage holy war.
The document is largely devoted to justifying Bin Laden's efforts to destroy America and Israel. There is no mention of passing on his possessions or assets, despite the fact that Bin Laden was at one point believed to have a personal fortune worth tens of millions of dollars.
The terrorist leader's will had a message for his wives, "don't consider marrying again, and devote yourselves to your children and guide them to the right path."
He signed the document "Your brother Abu Abdullah Osama Muhammad Bin Laden."

The Death Of Bin Laden In bible Code Glazerson

WSJ: Killing Terror Leaders: Israel's Experience The elimination of an organization's leader tends to paralyze the group in the short term, but it sometimes results in the rise of an even more dangerous successor.

Before most Americans had heard the name Osama bin Laden, Israel's Mossad was on to him. In 1995, when unknown assailants tried to kill then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, the CIA and the Egyptian intelligence service requested the Mossad's assistance in investigating the incident. The Mossad discovered that Iran and a hitherto unknown mujahedeen group were jointly responsible for carrying out the attempted assassination. Notable among these mujahedeen—veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan who had found refuge in Sudan—was a certain wealthy Saudi by the name of bin Laden.

The Mossad was sufficiently concerned by this development that it set up a Global Jihad desk—the first Western intelligence organization to do so—in a bid to gather information on the new phenomenon of scattered terrorist cells lacking a hierarchical structure and regular state assistance. The Mossad was also the first to attempt, unsuccessfully, to assassinate bin Laden: In 1995, it recruited his secretary to poison him.

It has long been evident that killings of this kind are an invaluable component of the military arsenal in the fight against terrorism. The country that has carried out more targeted killings than any other since the end of World War II is Israel. Though it officially denies responsibility for most of the killings it has carried out, the Jewish state has repeatedly eliminated field operatives and military, political and ideological leaders of organizations it has deemed dangerous.

While formally opposed to Israel's actions, U.S. administrations have turned a blind eye. And since the mid-1990s, Israel has shared a great deal of technology that it developed in its use of drones with the U.S. Today, drones are America's primary weapon in its own targeted killings. Israel also trained U.S. special forces in penetration and ambush techniques in urban environments—techniques that were later put into practice in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

AFP/Getty Images

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at a 2009 rally, with 'martyrs' Ragheb Harb, Abbas Mussawi and Imad Mugniyeh (left to right) pictured behind him.

With Osama bin Laden dead, the question facing Western intelligence services is what direction al Qaeda will take next. The lesson that the Israeli intelligence community has learned the hard way is that targeted killings, as often as not, have the effect of shuffling the deck in undesirable ways. The elimination of an organization's leader tends to paralyze the group in the short term, but it sometimes results in the rise of an even more dangerous successor.

On the afternoon of Feb. 16, 1992, Israeli Air Force Apache helicopters hit a convoy of vehicles in Lebanon, killing Abbas Mussawi, one of the founders and the secretary-general of Hezbollah. A successful operation in itself, Mussawi's assassination led to the retaliatory bombing attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 civilians lost their lives. In the long run, the killing resulted in the rise of Hassan Nasrallah as the new leader of Hezbollah. Talented and charismatic, Nasrallah turned Hezbollah into a dominant political and military force in Lebanon. He also changed the organization's goals, prioritizing the struggle against Israel instead of the domestic Lebanese power struggle, which was his predecessor's focus. (Nasrallah has largely remained underground since Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006.)

Similarly, in 2004, Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, based on the Israeli intelligence community's consensus that eliminating Yassin would cripple Hamas's future growth. This was also the view of the U.S. administration, which received prior notice of the intended killing.

Indeed, the killing of Yassin caused considerable immediate damage to Hamas and its ability to reorganize. But in the long term, the demise of Yassin—a devout Sunni who categorically refused to cooperate with Shiite Iran—made possible the rise of Khaled Meshaal, who had no such compunction. As a result, Hamas became, and remains, a much more dangerous organization—one that receives massive military and financial support from Tehran.

In 1988, Israel eliminated the military leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunis. The reason was his involvement in a series of fatal terrorist attacks and his superior ability to plan and carry out terrorist operations. Abu Jihad's death was a serious military blow, and it had a considerable effect on the organization's morale. But Israeli leaders hoped that eliminating Abu Jihad would help bring an end to the popular uprising, the first Intifada, that had broken out a short time before. In this, of course, they were to be profoundly disappointed.

There are those in Israel who have come to regret the assassination of Abu Jihad. Many political observers believe that had the charismatic leader been alive today he might have been able to unite the Palestinian people and fulfill the agreements with Israel that Yasser Arafat systematically violated.

The case of Arafat is complicated. Israel first tried to assassinate him in March 1968 in Jordan. He escaped, and many Israeli soldiers were killed. Countless other attempts were made on his life, including by shelling his bunker during the war in Beirut in 1982.

Over the years, there was much debate in Israel's intelligence community about what to do with Arafat. Officials eventually decided that he had ceased to be a target from the moment he received international legitimacy as a political leader (including among sections of the Israeli public).

But when he openly supported the waves of Palestinian terror that hit Israel starting in September 2000, his legitimacy was tarnished. Israel once again began examining the possibility of killing him. One suggestion was to capture him and deport him to Lebanon. This idea was vetoed by Mr. Sharon, who feared that Arafat would become a symbol and a rallying point. Mr. Sharon also vetoed all proposals to eliminate Arafat in a military operation. The issue was resolved when Arafat died in a hospital in Paris after a mysterious illness. Many of his followers blamed the Mossad.

Arafat's death has had a certain beneficial effect both on Israel and on the West Bank. His successors, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, have acted with determination against terror and have brought an improved quality of life and economic growth to inhabitants of the West Bank. On the other hand, where Arafat was strong Mr. Abbas has been weak, failing to prevent the split between the Fatah-led West Bank and the Hamas-led Gaza.

There is no doubt that the killing of bin Laden, like that of other terrorist leaders, was justified. But it remains to be seen who and what will eventually rise to take his place, and whether the apprentice will be more awful than the master.

Mr. Bergman is a senior military and intelligence analyst for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. He is currently working on a book about the Mossad and the art of assassination.