His murder, without due process or trial constitutes a catalyst, designed by Ariel Sharon to justify his final solution: the complete ethnic cleansing of the biblically defined Holy Land he claims as Israel, purged of all gentiles to make way for a Messiah that to the Christians and Muslims he exterminates, already came over two thousand years ago.  The genius being, as always America will ultimately do the dirty work. We'll get dragged in under the moniker, "War on Terror". No this is not alarmist; Sharon's own government has used these terms, intimations and ideas in regards to the Palestinian problem consistently.  Americans, privy only to his will and orchestrated presentation miss the obvious. We forget they are people, people just like us.

The press has already begun setting up Americans with a fear of Hamas and positioning this as part of our ambiguous, non-descript War on Terror.  Slowly over the past four years we've been conditioned to consider Arabs and Palestinians as bad, terrorists and inhuman. Collective punishment, guilt by association, the lambasting of an entire race over the actions of a few, this is not an American value. When did we as a nation adopt elitism? When did we embrace victimization?

Bloodied bodies of Arabs whether Saddam's son's or an Arab civilian cause no outrage.  Rather they prompt comedy sketches and late night ratings. We laugh; it is astonishing. We've become accustom to carnage. Ideas like this are necessary to harden us.  Should we realize these are humans, savagely disarmed, denigrated and oppressed humans, we might remember we are also human and think.

Americans do not realize this.  The Israeli's do, at least a strong minority somewhere between 30 and 40%.  Thank God for these Israeli citizens.  With Americans blind to the truth, the decent and humane Israelis are the only people standing between us, all of us and a potential World War III. Israel has 600 nuclear weapons; its leaders do not consider Arabs human.  Many Americans have bought the propaganda, the hate and advocate the killing of Arabs, Christian and Muslim as justified.  To say such is not even racist in the United States anymore; this is how far as a nation we've fallen. We are being played through cultivated hate, glorified entitlement and manufactured ignorance. War, that is what we are being set up for and ultimately that it is the significance of Yassin's murder.  To my fellow Americans concerned with the trivialities of hedonism, this idea falls on death ears.  As a nation we are blinded by orchestrated and intentional hate.

The Israelis along with the Palestinians will pay the initial price with their blood for America's ignorance.  They will pay with their lives for Sharon's arrogance and those who support his parasitic, elitist and supremacist aspirations of evil. Later it will be American children fighting in a war we could have prevented.  Israeli leaders going back to David Ben-Gurion and Zionist leaders including Izaak Greenbaum and Chaim Weizmann demonstrated a profound  willingness to sacrifice those of their faith by the millions to accomplish their goals. Sacrificing Jews for Jews has never stood in the way of national ambition for devote Zionists. 

Power to people like Sharon justifies all deaths, even those of his own.  The larger the Israeli death toll, the more leverage via projected victimization Sharon will have. We won't hear about the Palestinian death toll, which currently is in the several thousands.  We'll only hear of the Israeli death toll, currently in the mid-hundreds. Yassin's assassination, many Israelis see as the first step toward a new holocaust, this time their lives and the Palestinians being provoked at stake.   The Israelis get it. Americans, Jewish and Gentile do not.  How as a nation do we move past the blind hate and open our eyes to how we are being used?  Yassin's murder is more than a death.  It is a catalyst, a wake up call that as yet America fails to hear; and if we do, we fail to understand.

Below are two more editorials on the assassination.  One from Israeli Gilad Atzmon and the other from a Swiss human rights worker for the International Solidarity Movement, Silvia Cattori. You've seen the opinions of those supporting Sharon in the US Media.  These opinions are closer to what you will read in the rest of the world. Two different positions, two different messages, two different countries and two different faiths, yet words from the global community Americans also should hear. TOP

Assassinating Sheikh Yassin
Sharon Edges Closer to World War

Israeli Opinion By GILAD ATZMON

Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was murdered at daybreak on Monday. Israel Air Force helicopters fired missiles at the car carrying the wheelchair-bound head of the Islamic group as he left a mosque near his house in Gaza City. It also appears Ariel Sharon was in direct command of the assassination operation, not entirely surprising considering his bloody history.

For those who fail to realise, today's barbaric Israeli act is an open call
for a world war. It is the final wake up call for every Muslim around the world. It is violent proof that Israel isn't only against the Palestinians but rather against Islam. Israel killed a prime spiritual leader on his way out of the mosque. I have no doubt that this Israeli act won't be forgiven. I also have no doubt that many Israelis will pay with their life for Sharon's act. Moreover I am sure that sooner rather than later many innocent non-Israelis around the world will die just for being near by an Israeli embassy, Israeli consulate, a synagogue or even an American bank...This is the reality Sharon favours the most.

This is exactly what Israel wants: to turn the entire world into a victim of terror. This might help us to realise the main difference between the Israeli left and right. While both believe in the right of the Jews to live in Zion at the expense of the Palestinian people, the Israeli right wing rely on maintaining a bloody struggle, oppressing the Palestinian people (in particular) and humiliating Arabs (in general). While the Israeli left would attempt to come up with some unrealistic righteous suggestions to appease the Palestinian people and the world community (Oslo accord for instance), the right wing Israelis will suggest that the only method to guarantee Israeli security is to maintain the conflict with the Palestinian people and to let it escalate into an international battle.

On the surface it seems bizarre considering Sharon was just recently pretending to suggest a plan of Israeli disengagement from the Gaza strip. Today he gave us a real chance to peep into his mind. The 'disengagement plan' was just another of Sharon's tricks. In fact, Sharon and the Israeli right wing need the Palestinians, they need them oppressed and humiliated, they need their terror. Israeli right wing hegemony is fed by terror. And now there is a new need emerging. Israel is facing a demographic disaster. Within five years there will be a Palestinian majority in the territories controlled by Israel (between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River).

This is literally the end of the Zionist dream. Eventually Israel will have
to give away its Jewish identity. While the Israeli left remains confused
about this reality, the Israeli right wing is fully prepared. For years Israeli warmongers have openly discussed 'transfer': the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Considering the current world affairs and general opposition to Israel it is hard to believe that large scale ethnic cleansing would go ahead unless some colossal catastrophe was in place. Sharon is preparing the ground for such a disaster. He needs a war, a big one, something that will allow him to go wild, to go out of control, to initiate a campaign in which Israeli soldiers will become murderous squads ready massacre against the Palestinian civilians. Sharon wants to re-launch the 1948 Nakba. Sharon fully understands that this is what the Israeli public want. He is very good at reading their innermost desires.

The killing of Sheikh Yassin pushed the violence far beyond any recognisable measure. It is pushing the Palestinian masses towards martyrdom. According to the Israeli military doctrine, Israel would never be defeated by terror. But at the same time every Israeli realises that the Zionist adventure will be categorically defeated by a demographic crisis. The assassination of Sheikh Yassin is there to push the Palestinians towards acts that will allow the Israelis to impose the most murderous measures against the Palestinian civilians. Mr Sharon, a world acclaimed war criminal and serial murderer proved again that at least when blood games are concerned, he is one step ahead of the game.

Back to top was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is the author of the new novel A Guide to the Perplexed . Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. His new CD, Exile, was just named the year's best jazz CD by the BBC. He now lives in London and can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. TOP

Hamas:
A Palestinian resistance movement

  Swiss Opinion By Silvia Cattori
  Translation: D. Foppe / E. Davidsson
  22 March 2004

www.ism-suisse.org

In what other country are handicapped political opponents being hunted down with airplanes and missiles ? In our country, Switzerland, the disabled are treated with respect. All kinds of facilities exist to make their life bearable.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was a political opponent of one of the most brutal illegal occupation regimes in the world. This regime, based on hatred towards the Arabs, assassinated him. His blood and his assassination do not seem to pose a moral problem for Israeli Jews who have brought notorious war criminals to power.

Who are the murderers ? Those who, like the Palestinians, defend themselves or those who expell them from their land and kill them? Those who violate Palestinian land and airspace with missiles and rockets or a people which rises up against their oppressors ?

Murdering a handicapped person who leaves the place of prayer in a wheel chair is obviously a crime. Sheikh Yassin, however, is not a criminal but a man who called on his people to resist unlawful occupation.

Sheikh Yassin resisted spiritually and that was his honour. Resistance against a military occupying power, including by armed struggle, is an internationally recognized legal right of any occupied people. When Alexandre Adler tells us that Yassin "incarnates the radicalisation of the battle against the West" he serves us an indigestible dish of Israeli propaganda. Alexandre Adler takes care not to mention that Hamas is a popular resistance movement, that Hamas struggles inside a united front of all Palestinian political parties and religious movements in a just combat: To liberate Palestine from Israeli (Zionist) occupation.

Destroying Hamas is like destroying a whole people.

In designating resistance movements such as Hamas as a terrorist organisation, the apologists of Israeli occupation try to let us forget who are the real oppressors and facilitate the dirty work of the occupation forces. When the European Union designated the political wing of the Islamic movement Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it gave Israel the green light for assassinating Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. This is extremely grave.

Instead of facilitating assassinations, Europe should protect the Palestinian people who are doubly victimized: By Israeli machine guns and by Western media disinformation.