State-directed political assassination in Israel: A political hypothesis

Abstract

Extant theories explain reasonably well why the Israeli state exercises a given level of violence against substate actors. Based on economic or sociological models of human action, these theories attribute the level of state violence, respectively, to the narrow cost-benefit calculations of state officials or the institutionally embedded norms that govern their deliberations. The strength of such theories notwithstanding, this article argues that they fail to account for the willingness of Israeli officials to order the assassination of high-ranking political opponents during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel. This article’s analysis of published sources concerning the assassination of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Ismail Abu Shanab and of interviews with 74 Israeli counterterrorist experts suggests that the decision to engage in state-directed political assassination in the period 2000–5 was based less on narrow calculations and institutionally specific norms than on identifiable political contingencies. Specifically, the second intifada appears to have led many Israeli decision-makers to favour creating chaos in the Palestinian political system, a goal that was well served by the policy of political assassination. The policy’s effect was to forestall the founding of a viable, independent Palestinian state.