“Israel’s leaders killed three birds with one stone,” wrote Reuven Pedatzur, a senior military affairs analyst for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “They assassinated the man who had the power to make a deal with Israel; they took revenge on someone who had caused more than a few Israeli casualties; and they signaled to Hamas that communications with it will be conducted only through military force.” (View Highlight)
His quote from Haaretz, above, was in response to the Israeli assassination of another senior Hamas commander, Ahmed Jabari, in November 2012, which kicked off the 2012 Gaza war. (View Highlight)
As my former colleague at The Intercept, Jon Schwarz, documented in great detail last year, “Jabari had come to believe that it was in the best interest of Palestinians for Hamas to negotiate a long-term truce” and had been in communication with the respected Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin. “Just before the assassination, [Baskin] gave Jabari a draft proposal for such a truce to review and approve. The draft was agreed to by Baskin and Hamas’s deputy foreign minister, and Baskin also said he had previously shown it to Ehud Barak, then the Israeli minister of defense.” (View Highlight)
Remember Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the quadriplegic co-founder and spiritual leader of Hamas? He was assassinated less than three months after he proposed a long-term truce with Israel “if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” (View Highlight)
Then there was the Netanyahu government’s 2012 assassination of Jabari, who, as mentioned, was reviewing a “long-term mutual cease-fire” deal just “hours before he was killed,” according to Baskin. (View Highlight)
