Israel Kills Sheikh Yassin

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin is dead, and the world is better without him. The so-called “Spiritual Leader” of the hate brigade, Hamas, was eviscerated this morning by missiles launched from Israeli helicopters. In response, Arabs took to the streets of the Middle East threatening to open the gates of hell against Israel. As if Israel is not already under siege by forces of bigotry and racism.

Pity the Palestinian people. Not for the death of Yassin, but for their lack of leaders, spiritual or otherwise, capable of bringing about peaceful coexistence with Israel. The gist of Yassin’s leadership is found in the decidedly unspiritual words of the Hamas Covenant of 1988, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” This language and the leadership that brings it to life use Palestinians and the cause of Palestinian nationalism as a means to an end in the larger game of Islamic triumphalism.

Yassin and his foul ilk would, through Jihad, force upon the Jews of Israel choices consistent with Sharia and Islamic history: death; conversion to Islam; or dhimmitude. For the closed minded Islamist, this sort of choice represents not a step down from representative democracy, but a step up to divine justice. For thinking human beings everywhere, however, the choice proffered by Hamas is a step toward slavery.

Israel has a moral obligation to negotiate a peace that involves living side-by-side with a Palestinian state. In reaching for this objective, however, Israel is not obligated to coddle mass murderers who would do all in their power to prevent a two state solution. Palestinians too, have a moral obligation to negotiate a peace that involves living side-by-side with Israel. The death of Yassin is little more than the clearing of a piece of human excrement from the path to meaningful negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians.