How not to fight terror: Lessons from West Asia

The argument that this was retaliation for Hamas's killing of 10 Israeli civilians in Ashdod will convince nobody. It doesn't stand to reason that a crippled, frail, old man would have organised that attack.

Even if he did, Article 3(I) of the 1949 Geneva Conventions categorically prohibits murder or execution before proper judicial trial.

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Besides being totally illegal, Israel's action is morally indefensible. It's a clear extra-judicial killing. In plain English, this means murder--by the state. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon himself announced, it is only the beginning of the systematic elimination of the entire Hamas leadership.

Israel, quite simply, plans to annihilate whoever it regards as an enemy and a threat. This is in full conformity with a clinical definition of state terrorism. If governments were to resort to such methods, the world would become a cauldron of lawlessness, brigandage and bloody chaos.

Most countries have condemned the Israeli action. Even the United States--which has long indulged Israel--has finally come around to deploring the assassination. European Union Commissioner Chris Patten has compared it to dealing with a fire by pouring gasoline on the flames. Even India, which has developed a close strategic relationship with Israel, called the Israeli action "appalling".

To condemn it is not to condone Hamas. It is a fundamentalist group which indiscriminately kills civilians. But the thousands upon thousands of Palestinians who poured out in the streets, above all in Israeli cities like Nazareth, weren't condoning Hamas.

They were appalled at Israel's outrageous conduct. When states take revenge by imitating sub-state terrorists, they morally sink even lower. Physically, they can be infinitely more brutal.

The assassination will provoke unspeakably horrible revenge attacks by Hamas. The newly appointed top Hamas leader in Gaza, Abdal-Aziz Ranteesi, has vowed to "make the earth tremble under the feet of the Zionists".

Mr Sharon's plan to assassinate Yassin was opposed by his interior minister, and the head of the Israeli security service--men who cannot be accused of being "soft on terrorism".

The Sharon government has acted as if it willed retaliatory attacks. It's inconceivable that it acted without calculating the likelihood of terrorist strikes.

So Mr Sharon does not mind sacrificing the lives of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Such diabolical cynicism has been integral to Israeli policy. Hamas is itself its creation. Israel's General Yitzhak Sager has revealed that its agencies funded Sheikh Yassin to divert the Palestinian movement from its PLO-centred secular mainstream.

Over the past three years, Israel has succeeded in isolating the secularists. It has now given Hamas the martyr it was looking for. It's as if Hamas and the Sharon cabinet had become partners or allies in murder. Both practise an identical politics of revenge.

However, Mr Sharon is not just being devilishly cynical. He seems to have three larger objectives. First, he wants to send out the message that Israel is pulling out from Gaza from a position of strength. This will help Israel keep about half of the West Bank, which belongs to Palestine, indeed is its main contiguous territory.

Second, he calculates that counter-violence will legitimise extremist solutions. A climate of insecurity and fear will impel many Israelis to approve of measures like the Apartheid Wall, 650-km long (or 4 times longer than the Berlin Wall), which will tear up Palestinian territory and perpetuate illegal Israeli settlements.

A terrorised population can be manipulated to support the suppression of elementary human rights--and dehumanise and demonise the Palestinians. They could then be increasingly equated with mere vermin, or beasts unworthy of elementary decency or lawful treatment--"barbarians who want to take our lives".

Third, Mr Sharon wants to create conditions for extraordinary measures like mass expulsions or virtual siege of a whole territory like Gaza.

Hardcore Zionists don't want to trade land for peace. They want to subdue the Palestinians so they can keep some of their land. Mass expulsions were indispensable to Israel's very creation and may be necessary to ensure its survival. For Zionists, the Palestinians "will always pose a threat and … must therefore be controlled and caged in".

This is a recipe for catastrophic bloodletting through the imposition of gross injustice upon a dispossessed people. It is morally perverse and won't work. But it can do a lot of damage in the short run.

Regrettably, no major powers are able and willing to restrain Mr Sharon. The Europeans are unhappy but won't put pressure on him. The US can. But it's a prisoner of a profoundly mistaken approach to security and terrorism. It fails to see the connections between historic injustices, unaddressed grievances, social discontent, more grievances, and resort to violence.

Mr Bush is himself in the dock for fomenting terrorism. As former White House security chief Richard Clark says, Mr Bush has "undermined the war on terrorism" by invading Iraq. Iraq is churning up enormous discontent in the Middle East. The Arab world is appalled at the "original lie" behind the war and Iraq's occupation.

There's a lesson in this. You cannot fight terror with terror. Draconian measures will only victimise innocent people, create injustices, and further aggravate the problem. That's been India's POTA experience too.

And yet, our government remains fixated on a force-driven approach to terrorism. That's why it didn't call off last week's meeting of the India-Israel Joint Working Group on terrorism in Jerusalem.

There, Israel and India pledged to cooperate in fighting terrorism by forging "international alliances". India is looking to Israel's help in (gulp!) "counter-terrorism training". The two have become close allies. This bodes ill for any rational approach to terrorism. The government policies on West Asia and on terrorism must change.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.