Targeted Killings - A Counterterrorism of Israel (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 1,0 Germany, 5 Finland, University of Tampere, language: English, abstract: [...] After September 11th targeted killings become a usual method to eleminate terrorists. But targeted killings did not arose in 2001. Also in the Cold War there were many targeted attacks on politicians, agents and other undesirable people. The "Licence to Kill" spanninged the whole continent. The whole continent was spanning by the "Licence to kill". After the end of the Cold War the situation calmed down for a short time. But at the latest with the arising of the terrorism as the enemy of the civil society the state sanctioned killings became popular. The forerunner of targeted killings was Israel, the USA followed after September 11th. They used for example armed drones for killing suspects over a distance of thousands of kilometres. Also Russia uses this method for the fight against terrorism. For example they accomplished a lethal prevention attack on a former Chechenian leader in Katar. One of the most spectacular Israeli targeted killings was the killing of the religious leader of the Palestine Hamas Sheik Yassin. This targeted killing aggravated the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a strong way. Yassin and his followers who left the mosque were shot out of an helicopter. Besides the targeted killings of members of political and militant movements there are often attacks on Palestinian people who are in no coherence with demonstrations or rebellions. Here are to mention targeted attacks in Palestinian settlements, killings because of carelessness, planless shootings and inconsiderate eleminating of human life. The following work tasks with the targeted killings which Israel practices. Because on the one hand Israel is the forerunner of this method and on the other hand Israel practices this method very often and with an enormous brutality as well as recklessness against the civil society. At first I give some examples of Israeli targeted killings. These case studies conclude killings of the political elite as well as the Palestinian civil society. Other aspects in this essay are the different positions on the Israeli "Politics of Killing". In this point the positions of Israel, Palestine, the United Nations and the problem of the American position are important. A further feature aspect is the international law. There is the question if targeted killings of terrorists could be accepted in the view of the international law or not.