In a region already balancing on a knife-edge of tension and hostilities, last week's assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut by Israeli forces have threatened to engulf the broader Middle East in all-out war. Carried out within hours of one another, the dual killings are the latest in a long and storied line of Israeli cross-border assassinations against high-profile targets around the world.
'Settling accounts' "For decades," Israel's message to potential foes has been "loud and clear: Hit us, and you will die," The Times of Israel said. It's a sentiment expressed recently by government adviser Mark Regev, who pledged vengeance, whether it "takes a year or five years or 25 years," in a CNN interview just days after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Israel is "committed to settling accounts," David Barnea, the head of the Mossad Israeli secret service, said in January.
Those stated aims of retribution suggest goals tied as much to catharsis as they are about producing a tactical outcome. Studies suggest targeted killings "have no effect on insurgency violence in Palestine," said Indiana University Professor Jeff Gruenewald in 2017.
Occasionally, they can even be counterproductive to other national goals. Israeli efforts to assassinate Hamas figures behind the Oct. 7 attack are "likely complicating hostage and cease-fire negotiations," said David Meidan, a former top Mossad intelligence officer, to Politico earlier this year.
'In the moment' "I believe very strongly that some targeted assassinations make more sense and some make no sense at all," said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Killing Hezbollah's Shukr "upsets their whole operational structure, because it affects the command and might inhibit further attacks," whereas Haniyeh's death was "just supposed to say we're holding people accountable."
For all of Israel's high-profile assassinations across the past half century, "even after initially being hailed as a game-changing victory," the end result has largely been a "killed leader being replaced by someone more determined, adept and hawkish," Al Jazeera said. Accordingly, there is "little reason to believe" that Israel's attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah leadership will "make these groups less formidable foes to Israel." Then what is the point? Israel, said Levitt, is merely "trying to change something in the moment." |