The Foreign Ministry has armed its representatives abroad with the following talking points to explain Monday's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin.

These talking points including the following:

Yassin was at important link in international terror, and Hamas had connections with other terror groups around the world .

Trying to characterize Yassin as a "spiritual leader" is similar to trying to characterize Osama bin Laden in the same vein. Yassin took advantage of his status as a spiritual leader to influence the carrying out of hundreds of murderous attacks, from the Dolphinarium attack in Tel Aviv in 2001 to the Passover eve attack in Netanya in 2002. He personally was responsible for the June 2002 attack on the Number 19 bus in Jerusalem at the Patt Junction, in which 19 people were murdered and 74 wounded.

Yassin led for years a radical Islamic terror organization that carried out a long list of horrible attacks which killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis.

Yassin was a chilling example of the cynical use of religion to send women and children to blow themselves up and kill hundreds of Israelis.

The killing of Yassin is not an act of vengeance, but rather part of a continuous campaign against terrorists who have targeted Israelis, and whose final goal is the destruction of Israel.

Those who deal in terrorism must know that Israel will not sit quietly and wait for the next suicide bomber to appear on the streets of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Israel's government, like all governments around the world, has a basic responsibility to protect its citizens from terrorists.

In parallel to the fight against the terror infrastructure and terrorist leaders, Israel will continue to try to reach a diplomatic arrangement with the Palestinians based on the road map. This arrangement will only be reached in the future if the Palestinians will both fight terror and abandon terror as a way of solving diplomatic disagreements.

Israel offered the Palestinians hope based on reasonable compromise. It extended its hand in peace, but received in exchange a full portion of terror. Even now, Israel is being threatened by an increase in terror, and it will continue to defend itself against these threats.