Nothing Left to Lose - I have to post the whole thing.


Back when I was a reporter with the Jerusalem Post, they would send me out on a day like today to get the "man on the street reaction" color piece about how regular non-politician Israelis felt about the assassination of Yassin.

Though I wasn't officially reporting today, I spoke to a lot of people as I went about my day, and writing such a piece would have been pretty straightforward. The overall support for the Yassin assasination, though not always enthusiastic, is nearly unanimous, notably among those centrists to center-lefties like myself, who would have opposed such a move vehemently until a very short time ago.

Obviously, everyone thinks that its morally justified, as he is directly responsible for so many murders.

But what has changed is the calculation as to whether or not it was strategically wise.

Whenever I challenged someone with the old arguments, by saying, "But aren't you worried about the retaliation? Don't you think this is going to provoke some terrible terror attacks? Isn't it just going to make things worse?" the response was the same: "And you think that if we DIDN'T kill Yassin there wouldn't be terror attacks? What exactly has been happening up till now? Every day they are trying to attack us? How exactly could it GET any worse?"

That is what these three-plus years of Intifada have done to the Israeli public.

They see that when we try to make nice and compromise we get terror attacks. And when we're tough and aggressive we get terror attacks. Nothing we do seems to lower the motivation to slaughter Israeli civilians -- men, women, or children -- and in the case of Hamas, to see the state of Israel destroyed. So since there's absolutely nothing to lose by getting Yassin, and something to possibly gain -- at least temporarily derailing the Hamas leadership structure, and hopefully weakening it long-term -- so why not go ahead and do it?

It's a similar equation as the fence. Yes, building this fence is pissing off the Palestinians big-time. But does anyone think that if we stopped building it, they would be so happy and grateful, terror attacks would stop? No. No fence equals attempts at terror attacks, and a fence equals attempts at terror attacks. So why in the world shouldn't we support building a fence in the hopes of foiling a number of these attacks?

With nothing left to lose, let's try to do what we can to protect ourselves. That's the sentiment of the man on the street.

Clearly, the Israeli public seems to have all but given up on figuring out how to make the right moves in order to nudge the Palestinians towards wanting a peaceful two-state solution. They've given up. That's why there's generally support for Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan -- otherwise known as the "We're So Disgusted with the Palestinians, We're Getting the Hell Away From Them and Building a Big Wall" plan. And if they try to wage war from the other side of the wall, they'll get the same treatment as Yassin.

We're not running scared. We're just sick and tired of this.