Gavrilo Princip, a young Bosnian student living in Serbia, fired two shots to assassinate Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophia in 1914. The great empire retaliated by declaring war on Serbia and World War I began.
Last week, an Israeli military helicopter fired three missiles to kill the leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Instantly, Hamas vowed revenge, and it looks like Israel and Palestine are headed down another vicious cycle of violence.
The similarities are striking: both situations involved neighboring countries in close proximity opposed in political strife, with citizens of differing cultures that are fiercely nationalistic and each mistrusts and antagonizes the enemy. The Balkan region was called a "powder keg" before WWI, and the same term could rightly be applied to the Middle East today.
Yet the differences are also revealing -- Princip's crime was the act of one ideologically crazed student, and it led whole nations to fight each other in a guise of suspicion. Israel's actions, on the other hand, reflect an explicit act of violence authorized by an elected government leader. There is no need for suspicion, only waiting for revenge.
With its actions last week, Israel has finally lost whatever moral high ground it could possibly claim before this. Any appeal to the inhumanity of suicide bombing seems negated now by the similar barbarity of a government-sponsored assassination.
Ariel Sharon has made his position clear and affirmed what critics have been saying about him for years: he is not now and never was for peace, but rather was a man of war seeking victory.
It is not that we should feel sympathetic toward Yassin. This is, after all, a man who has authorized several missions targeting civilians and urged his followers to "strike down the Jews." But the political motives behind the attack are utterly Machiavellian.
Sharon is a smart man. He must have known that killing a crippled, 67-year-old, wheelchair-bound leader would have only a symbolic impact on curbing terrorism. He also knows that the assassination would breed more vows of revenge and give Hamas yet another martyr to rally around.
As author Chris Marsden writes, "Sharon's aim is to provoke an angry reaction amongst the Palestinian masses and an escalation in suicide bombings. This will serve to undermine what little influence Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) still possesses ... and in doing so will open the way for a stepping up of Israel's military attacks."
To risk the lives of his own people and those around the world in an effort to gain political capital is morally reprehensible and deranged.
And as if to further proclaim his disconnect with reality, Sharon followed up the murder by reiterating his administration's commitment to peace, asking President Bush yesterday to support Israel's disengagement plan from the West Bank.
Sharon is spitting in the faces of the Palestinians while at the same time claiming to be a man for peace.
Unfortunately for the United States, Yassin's death is dangerous for two major reasons. First, as an MSNBC article noted Wednesday, Yassin was one of the few Palestinian extremists, "who recognized that the United States does, in fact, try to restrain the excesses of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon." And Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Queria warned further, "Yassin is known for his moderation, and he was controlling Hamas, and therefore this is a dangerous, cowardly act." Hamas has already elected a new leader said to be much more anti-American than Yassin.
Moreover, Hamas and other extreme Islamist groups are already capitalizing on this event. Hamas has released a press statement claiming, "The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without getting the consent of the terrorist American Administration, and it must take responsibility for this crime." And Shi'a cleric Sayyed Muqtada Sadr said at his weekly sermon Friday, "The attack on Sheik Yassin is an attack on Islam, and America is responsible for this aggression by remaining silent."
Hamas later retracted its threats against the United States, but America cannot ignore the original sentiment.
For President Bush, it is especially important now not simply to choose sides on this issue based on whether the Arab-American voting block or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee can raise more money for him in the next election, but to ensure that America's policy in the Middle East is to secure a fair and impartial peace process. Otherwise, the powder keg in Palestine looks ready to explode.
Ishtiaque Masud is an economics junior. Reach him at ishtiaque.masud@asu.edu.
