Lately an excellent example of what I mean has hit the headlines, with the (alleged) Israeli assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Now, I'm going to make some assumptions in discussing this. Namely:
- The Israelis (Mossad, most likely) really did assassinate him.
- He was involved in obtaining weapons and explosives for Hamas
- Hamas has as its aim the destruction of Israel as a state.
- I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs of where the borders of Israel should be.
Assassinating a citizen of another country, while in a third country, and travelling under false passports from several other countries, is likely to annoy a lot of people. There is no trial involved; bad precedents are set; lots of laws are broken. It's pretty much the opposite of due process. And it's effectively the imposition of the death penalty, which I am opposed to for a number of reasons.
Considered as an act of war, however, it can be seen as the deliberate killing of a declared opponent. This is something that there is a great deal of in wartime. If we compare it the the usual outcomes of battles (especially those in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), this one can be seen as relatively bloodless and carefully targeted. Nobody else was killed or even wounded, and there was no destruction of property.
So this is an example of what I meant by that. If you can substantially damage your enemy's ability to fight, with limited and targeted casualties, then it is arguably just as moral as warfare to do so.
The precedents you set must also be considered, however. If Hamas in future assassinated a warlike Israeli politician, then the only cover Israel would have for complaint was their claim that they weren't involved in this assassination, which as far as I can tell nobody on the planet believes. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not.
More importantly, there are the results. One of the key drivers for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it seems to me, is the belief by some on both sides that if they keep the fight going for long enough, they can get a better deal. The Israelis who think this way hope to keep driving out Palestinians; the Palestinians who think this way hope for a shift in the wider balance of power.
Another driver is that neither side believes it can trust the other with a peace deal. Assassinations help those trying to prolong the conflict, and increase the mistrust on both sides.
However, compared to, say, shelling a UN facility or a school full of civilians, this is a relatively civilized action.
