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Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Steven R. David
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Abstract

Since the beginning of the second intifada in the fall of 2000, Israel has pursued a policy in which alleged Palestinian terrorists have been hunted down and killed by government order. The policy is not one of assassination and is consistent with international law because Israel is engaged in armed conflict with terrorists, those targeted are usually killed by conventional military means, not through deception, and the targets of the attacks are not civilians but combatants or are part of a military chain of command. Targeted killing has also been affirmed by Israel's High Court.

Although targeted killing has been pursued by Israel throughout its history, the scale of the present effort and the use of sophisticated military assets such as helicopter gunships and jet fighters set it apart from earlier practices. The effectiveness of the policy is called into doubt because it has not prevented–and may have contributed to–record numbers of Israeli civilians being killed. The policy has also resulted in informers being revealed, intelligence resources diverted, potential negotiating partners eliminated. It has also produced murderous retaliation and international condemnation of Israel. Benefits of the policy include impeding the effectiveness of terrorist operations, keeping terrorists on the run, and deterring some attacks. In addition, it affords the Israeli public a sense of revenge and retribution.

Because it targets the actual perpetrators of terrorism, targeted killing provides a proportionate and discriminate response to the threat Israel faces. Improving the policy will require better civilian oversight, greater care to eliminate harm to innocent bystanders, and refraining from killing political leaders. Despite its many shortcomings, Israel is justified in pursuing this policy so long as it faces a terrorist threat that the Palestinian Authority will not or cannot control.

Type
Debate
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 111 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2003

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References

1 Karin Laub, ‘“Targeted Killings’ Claim Civilians,” Associated Press, September 27, 2002; available at http://www.act.org/Daily%20News/Sep_02/Index.htm#1.

2 See, e.g., Thomas, Ward, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 49Google Scholar; and Weiner, Tim, “Rethinking the Ban on Political Assassinations,” New York Times, August 30, 1998Google Scholar, sec. 4, p. 3.

3 See Schmitt, Michael N., “State-Sponsored Assassination in International and Domestic Law,” Yale Journal of International Law 17, no. 2 (1992), pp. 632–42Google Scholar; and Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction.

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8 For general discussions of why conventional attacks on individuals during armed conflict do not constitute assassination, see Schmitt, “State-Sponsored Assassination in International and Domestic Law”; and Zengel, Patricia, “Assassination and the Law of Armed Conflict,” Mercer Law Review 43 (1991), p. 627Google Scholar. I am grateful to Ward Thomas for alerting me to these citations.

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36 As of December 2002, 1,794 Palestinians and 673 Israelis have been killed. The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, “Fatalities in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”; available at http://www.ict.org.il.