Israel Assassination Deepens Split Between Bush, Europe

by Julio Godoy

(IPS) PARIS -- The differing reactions to the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement, underline the divergences in the European and the U.S. approaches to the Middle East conflict.

While the U.S. government simply noted that it had not been previously informed by the Israeli government of its plan to kill Yassin, and that it was "deeply troubled" by the assassination, the European Union (EU) was more forthright in condemning the act, and called it "contrary to international law."

On March 22, a missile attack from an Israeli military helicopter killed Yassin as he was leaving a mosque in Sabra neighborhood in Gaza city. Two bodyguards and five others were also killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon justified the assassination, calling Yassin "the first of Palestinian assassins." Yassin had survived an Israeli attempt to kill him in September last year.

Since the beginning of the second Intifadah in September 2000, the Israeli government has assassinated a dozen or so of Hamas leaders. The U.S. government has never condemned this Israeli policy.

Condoleezza Rice, security advisor to President George W. Bush, only called on both sides to avoid acts that impede "better days" in the region. But U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte justified Israel's policy of assassinating those it sees as terrorist leaders.

"Yassin preached hatred and glorified suicide bombings," Negroponte said at a UN Security Council meeting this week.

On the other hand the European Union (EU) declared that "extrajudicial executions undermine the very concept of a constitutional state, which is a central element in the war against terrorism."

Other than Italy which objected to the strong wording of the EU statement, European governments condemned the assassination. The Polish and the British governments normally seen as close allies of the United States also criticized Israel.

"Images of a handicapped person tied to a wheelchair, being shot by missiles, is not the best way to improve Israel's security," said Poland's foreign minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewics. Yassin was handicapped since his youth.

European media also condemned the killing far more strongly than U.S. media. The German liberal daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said Hamas and Sharon are partners in violence.

"Sharon needed Hamas terror to destroy the peace impulse coming from the Oslo peace agreements," wrote Heiko Flottau in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "And Hamas needs Sharon's policy of extrajudicial assassinations to justify itself."

The French leftist newspaper LibŽration said that in assassinating Yassin, Sharon was keeping "his people and his country on a path that has no way out other than blood and hardship."

The different U.S. and European reactions reflect radically different views of the conflict.

In close coordination with Israel, the U.S. government has been trying to remove Yasser Arafat from Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, and has even considered moves to force him out of Palestinian territories.

The U.S. and the Israeli governments have also tried to push Arafat out of negotiations to settle the conflict. These attempts have failed so far to weaken Arafat's grip upon the PA.

The EU on the contrary sees Arafat as the legitimate Palestinian representative whose leadership has been confirmed in several elections.

The EU continues to give the Palestinian Authority some 400 million dollars a year in economic aid despite repeated Israeli accusations of corruption against Arafat. This European aid adds up to a third of the PA's budget. The EU has so far given the PA $4.5 billion.

But however different the U.S. and the European approaches to the Middle East conflict, they are alike in their failure to find a solution.

"The U.S. government has given up even pretending to search for a solution to the conflict," says Gerard Dupuy, diplomatic correspondent for the French newspaper LibŽration.

"At most, what U.S. officials do now in the face of the problem is to speak unconvincingly about their so-called roadmap to peace," Dupuy told IPS. "But this famous roadmap looks more and more like a scribbling paper outdone by reality."

As for Europe, Dupuy said EU policy is marked by "goodwill and good intentions, but the conflict continues to get worse and worse." Europe remains impotent in the face of Israeli and U.S. unwillingness to give it a role in negotiations with the PA.

Since the attacks in Madrid on March 11, Europe feels now directly threatened by Islamic terrorism, and has tightened its controls upon Muslim militant movements. But despite this, Israel and even the United States accuse Europe of being soft on terrorism.

Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge investigating the attacks in Madrid, says Europe is doing "maybe one-third of what we can do within the law in fighting terrorism. There is a lack of communication, a lack of coordination and a lack of any broad vision."