Israel’s Targeted Killings of Terrorists: A Life-Saving Tactic That Is Legal, Effective, Precise, and Just

May 11, 2021 by

By Alex Grobman, PhD

On November 12, 2019, the announcement by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) that Israel had just assassinated the commander of the northern branch of Islamic Jihad’s military wing in the Gaza Strip, Baha Abu- al-Ata, seemed to represent a change in Israeli tactics. Because, for the past few years, the Jewish State had been refraining from employing targeted assassinations, it is now useful to understand some of the underlying issues this form of deterrence raises.

In general, Israelis use the terms “extrajudicial punishment,” “selective targeting,” or “long-range hot pursuit” to describe their counterterrorism policy.1 It doesn’t really matter what term is used to describe these counter-offensive measures in which Israel has used fighter jets, helicopter gunships, tanks, car bombs, booby traps, and snipers. All are employed not so much to punish criminals for actions already perpetrated, but rather to eliminate terrorists who are proven to be in the process of planning new terrorist acts. In any case, the practice has generated intense controversy.2

In July 2001, then-American Ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk went on Israeli television to condemn the Israeli policy of targeted assassinations, saying that the US government “is clearly on the record against” them.

“They are extrajudicial killings, and we do not support that,” he said.3

In 2004, when Israel killed Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as well as the European Commission, the British and French governments, and many others condemned the act.4

Interestingly, when the US targeted Osama bin Laden in 2011 under then-President Barack Hussein Obama, then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon lauded the Americans.5

Gaining Notoriety

“Targeting Killing” gained notoriety after Israel began directly pursuing terrorists in 2000. Critics disparaged this tactic, calling it “counterproductive” because, they said, it only triggered more attacks.

As an example, they cited the October 17, 2001 murder of then-Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, the most senior Israeli leader to be killed by Palestinian-Arab terrorists. He had been on a list of 20 prominent Israeli leaders marked for death by Palestinian-Arabs to avenge the targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders such as Mas’ud Iyyad, who was trying to establish a Hezbollah cell in Gaza, and Muhammad Abd al-Al, who was on his way to carry out two major terrorist attacks.6

In 2002, the Israelis turned their attention to eliminating Chief Sheikh Salah Shehada, the founder of the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. But an IDF attack on Shehada was hardly the Jewish State’s first effort to stop the violence planned and operated by Shehada, who had orchestrated 52 actions resulting in the murder of 220 Israeli civilians and 16 soldiers.

Not the First Option

Before deciding to kill him, Israeli officials repeatedly demanded that the Palestinian Authority arrest him. When the PA refused, Israel decided to capture him, but the IDF soon realized that seizing him in his home in the middle of Gaza City would cause a riot.

Eight separate attempts to kill Shehada were aborted by the IDF because, on each of those occasions, he was accompanied by his daughter. Only after the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, concluded that he would be in an apartment building with no civilians in the immediate vicinity, was the kill order sanctioned.

But the Shin Bet’s information proved erroneous, and, on July 22, 2002, an Israeli F-16 dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on Shehada’s building, killing at least 14 civilians, including his daughter and eight other children.7

Before ordering the strike, Lt-General Moshe Ya’alon, then the IDF’s Chief of Staff, and his chief of operations had agonized over the decision through the day. Ya’alon called the collateral fatalities that occurred along with the effort to kill Shehada “like something heavy fell on my head.” The incident along with his mother’s experience as the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust shaped his views about the whole issue of targeted killing.8

“I learned ‘Remember and don’t forget.’ I drank it like mother’s milk. It means that Jews shouldn’t be killed, but it also means that we don’t kill others. You need strength to defend Israel, and, on the other hand, to be human. This is the tension, the heaviness of the decision,” he said.9

How to Respond to a Tragic Dilemma

In many ways, Ya’alon’s views reflected the way Israel approached the issue. He explained that the Jewish state must consider the “morality of counterterrorist measures within the framework of three tests.”

First, he said, there is the “mirror test,” in which the individual who is called upon the execute a terrorist must determine “whether the policy meets his own ethical standards.” Then, there is the “our own society” test, in which “a policymaker must consider whether the policy meets the moral standards of his broader society.” And, finally, there is the “international test” in which Israel “considers whether the policy satisfies the internationally recognized moral standards, as well as what would be the response of the international community.”10

Major-General Amos Yadlin, a former IDF Chief of Military Intelligence, called it “a tragic dilemma.”

“A terrorist is going to enter a restaurant and blow up 20 people. But if we blow up his car, three innocent people in the car will die. How do we explain it to ourselves?” he asked.11

Almost nine years after the Shehada-building bombing, an Israeli government investigation found that although the process of determining when to conduct the targeted killing was flawed, the results “did not stem from disregard or indifference to human lives.” Citing Israeli rules of engagement and international law, the three-member board, led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice, ruled that the soldiers directing the operation did not commit a criminal violation.12

Doing It Abroad

It was hardly the first time Israeli officials had seriously considered the problems associated with the tactic, which was originally suggested in the fall of 2000 by Ya’alon shortly after the violence later called the Second Intifada began. He told then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak that, instead of placing restrictions on all Palestinian Arabs, Israel should initiate “surgical operations” against terrorists under the joint command of Shin Bet and the military.13

It was not so different from what Israel had been doing for years against terrorists who were hosted in Arab countries which were in a state of war with Israel and refused to extradite wanted criminals. Israel’s only option was to pursue the criminals and their leaders wherever they were hiding.14. Some of these operations were commanded by soldiers who later became senior leaders in the Israeli government, such as Ya’alon and Barak.15

In Beirut in 1973, wearing high heels and a woman’s wig, Barak participated in killing three of the terrorists who had murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics a year earlier. In the early 1990s, Barak formed undercover units called “Cherry” and “Samson” in which soldiers dressed as Arabs killed Palestinian-Arabs suspected of violence.16

International Failure to Thwart Terror

Bar Ilan University Professor Gerald Steinberg, founder, and president of NGO Monitor is convinced that the “failure of the international legal system and the UN to provide a remedy to mass terror” is a major reason that Israel has been forced to deal with terrorism alone and with force. Neither the International Criminal Court nor the UN would pursue lawsuits against terrorists financed by Iran. The UN’s Human Rights Council, which is controlled by Libya, Algeria, and Iran, has systematically ignored Israeli grievances.17

For this reason, after resurrecting the tactic of targeted killings, Barak secretly enlisted Daniel Reisner, a former head of the International Law Branch of the IDF’s Legal Division, to determine if the assassinations were, in fact, legal. Reisner, who had served as a senior member of Israel’s peace delegations with Jordan and the Palestinian Arabs between 1994 and 2000, took six weeks to struggle with Barak’s question.

“It was a feeling of—what on Earth has happened. Instead of two states living amicably side by side, I have to write an opinion on how and when we kill each other,” he said.18

Reisner concluded that the tactic was legal, with six provisions: arrest is impossible; targets are combatants; senior cabinet members authorize each operation; civilian casualties are minimized; operations are restricted to areas not under Israeli control; and targets are recognized as a future threat.

Targeted killings could not be used as retribution for past actions. A military panel established in 2002 took 20 meetings held over a period of six months to decide that targeting could be used only for deterrence and not for revenge.19

Critics’ Arguments

Critics were unimpressed. They claimed targeted killings abroad violated the sovereignty of foreign nations and provided Israeli security services with a license to kill without due process. Some critics wanted proof that the killings actually disrupted terrorist organizations and/or decreased their motivation.20

Some opponents of the tactic argued that targeted assassinations provoked international censure of Israel, affected the Jewish state’s diplomatic relations, and fostered Arab antagonism.21

While still others insisted that the killings would serve to inspire young Arab men and women to join their idealized peers, especially after attending well-publicized, lavish funerals at which the deceased terrorists’ pictures are prominently displayed.22

Unfounded Criticism

According to Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), the criticism is unfounded. He admitted that targeted killings do not prevent terror, but, he said, they do disrupt terrorist operations because there is a significantly limited number of skilled operatives among the terrorists who can manufacture bombs, train terrorists, forge documents, recruit others, and serve as leaders.23

When terrorists are arrested or killed, new recruits initially do not have the same expertise and do not present an immediate existential threat, he said.24

The Jewish state’s use of targeted killings means terrorist leaders are forced to spend a great deal of time trying to evade detection from Israeli security forces as well as from Arab informers.25 This requires the terrorist leaders to change and vary their locations and maintain low profiles. The consequentially restricted flow of information makes communication between terrorist leaders and their foot soldiers perilous.26

According to Dr. Luft, untold numbers of civilians have been saved from being killed or maimed as a result of the tactic.27

Targeting the Engineer

Yehiya Ayash, “The Engineer,” is an example. Considered the father of homicide terrorism, Ayyash, who was an engineering student, gained notoriety in the 1990s for his role in assembling explosives, teaching Arab youth to manufacture explosive belts, and enlisting them as Hamas suicide-homicide bombers. Most of the Palestinian-Arab terror attacks following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 are ascribed to him with at least 39 Israelis killed.

On January 5, 1996, an Israeli drone hovering over Ayash’s hideout sent a signal to the cell phone given to him by his friend, which resulted in blowing a hole in his skull.28

No one knows how many lives were saved by that action.

Targeting the Paraglider Attackers

Another example of lives saved occurred on August 21, 2014, when Hamas leader Raed Attar, commander of the Rafah cell of the Izz Ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was killed, thus preventing a Gaza-area paraglider attack on Israel by a 15-member paragliding squadron he had established four years earlier.

“Attar’s assassination has disrupted everything,” an Israeli said at the time.

After his arrest, one of Attar’s cell leaders, Mohammad Kadara, admitted that Attar and his aide “made sure to send us to Malaysia to practice paragliding.” To get there, the squadron “went through tunnels from Sinai to Cairo and then took a flight to Malaysia.”29

Kadara explained that two attack tunnels were built under an olive grove that crossed the border into Israel.

“Our goal was to ambush the [Israeli] soldiers who would come to the scene, shoot them, and detonate bombs. We planned to abduct soldiers and deliver them through the tunnels. We were two weeks in a tunnel with food: cartons of dates, bread, and water. We were kept confidential and were told not to reveal our activities to anyone. An operative would update our families that we were all right,” said Kadara.30

Two Contradicting Legal Principals

The December 31, 2000, targeted killing of the 49-year-old dentist, Thabit Thabit, who also served as a regional commander of Palestinian-Arab terror forces in the Tulkarem area, a little over 50 miles from Jerusalem, served as a trigger for the debate in Israel about the morality, legitimacy, and value of such assassinations.

Though secretly involved in numerous terrorist actions, Thabit portrayed himself as a human rights activist. He served as director-general of the Palestinian Health Ministry and cultivated many friends in Israel’s left-wing Peace Now movement.31

When his wife petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to terminate targeted assassinations after her husband had been assassinated, Israelis were forced to examine the tactic’s legality under international law. No one denied that infringing on another state’s sovereignty, particularly by exacting extrajudicial retribution on its citizens, is a flagrant contravention of international law. However, the law also demands that countries not provide terrorists with a base from which they can “threaten the territorial integrity and security” of other states. In that case, sovereign nations are charged with prosecuting violators.32

Laws of Combat

The situation Israel faces is more complex. Because the PA is not a state, it is not legally obligated to adhere to the laws, regulations, and treaties of a recognized country. However, after signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Cairo Agreements (1994), the Wye River Summit (1998), and the Shark el Sheikh Memorandum, (1999), the PA obligated itself to combat terrorism.

Not only has it failed to stop terrorism, but the PA has also freed jailed terrorists and provided them with weapons and financing. On numerous occasions, Israel has supplied PA leaders with intelligence about future terrorist attacks, only to have the PA use the information to alert the perpetrators instead of incarcerating them.33

In a legal opinion, former Israeli attorney general and now-Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein wrote: “The laws of combat which are part of international law, permit injuring, during a period of warlike operations, someone who has been positively identified as a person who is working to carry out fatal attacks against Israeli targets, those people are enemies who are fighting against Israel, with all that implies, while committing fatal terror attacks and intending to commit additional attacks—all without any countermeasures by the PA.”34

“Effective, Precise, and Just”

After a Palestinian-Arab terrorist drove a bus into a crowd of civilians on February 14, 2001, killing nine Israelis, then-Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said the Israeli government “would continue our policy of liquidating those who plan or carry out attacks, and no one can give us lessons in morality because we have unfortunately 100 years of fighting terrorism.”

Several months later, Sneh, speaking then as Minister of Transportation, explained to BBC News that if anyone “has committed or is planning to carry out terrorist attacks, he has to be hit.”

“It is effective, precise, and just,” he said.35

Johns Hopkins Professor of International Relations Steven R. David agreed that the legality, including most interpretations of international law and Jewish law, is in accordance with Israeli law.

Legal According to Israeli and International Law

Israel Basic Law, the Israeli compilation closest to a Constitution, certifies that “There shall be no violation of the life, body, or dignity of any person as such.” But the Basic Law permits these rights to be suspended “by a law benefitting the values of the State of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose, and to an extent no greater than is required, by a regulation enacted by virtue of express authorization in such law.”36

According to international law, assassination violates international treaty and customary law, but, as international law expert John Norton Moore explained, target killing is not assassination.

“If one is lawfully engaged in armed hostility, it is not ‘assassination’ to target individuals who are combatants,” he said.

American military lawyer Charles J. Duncan agreed. “Contrary to popular belief, neither international law nor US domestic law prohibits the killing of those directing armed forces in war. Nations have the right under international law to use force against terrorists,” he said.37

Is Israel at War?

The issue of whether or not Israel’s targeted killings are indeed assassinations depends on whether the country is at war. While international law recognizes only two situations, peace or war, Israel’s situation—and life in general—is not that simple.

According to the IDF’s legal division, “Israel is not at war since war is between two armies or two states and the Palestinians have neither. But since Israel is in armed conflict with Palestinians, you are allowed to target combatants.”

This means, for Israel, “armed combat” is the same as “war.”

Professor David agreed. “Israel has every right to target those combatants it believes are its enemy. Just as a soldier will feel no compunction about firing on an opposing army in wartime before they attack, so Israel is legally justified in pre-emptively killing terrorists regardless of whether they have attacked Israel. War—or armed conflict—is a legal license to kill opponents whether it is targeted killing or more traditional combat.”38

“Treacherous” Killing

Another issue that arises in the case of targeted killings is whether “treacherous” methods are used. This is not just a matter of semantics. As former American Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger once noted that while it is considered lawful for a soldier to steal into the enemy’s camp, enter the general’s camp, and kill him, “it would be a forbidden assassination if someone disguised as the general’s doctor was admitted to his tent and then killed him.”39

Thus, the US justified its unsuccessful efforts to eliminate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1986 and Osama bin Laden in 1998 using bombs and cruise missiles. Because they were military operations conducted without any deceptions, the injunction against assassination did not apply.40 Using helicopter gunships or F-16s fits much more the conventional modes of warfare than it does the shadowy world of assassinations.

Therefore, while some international lawyers may disapprove of Israeli actions in employing targeting killing, few would argue that they violate the ban on assassination.41

Prof David pointed out that targeted killings as employed by Israel are in accordance with Jewish legal rulings regarding a rodef (a pursuer). According to Jewish law, if someone plans to murder you, you are commanded to him first. This is not only for your protection but for the community’s security as well. Therefore, killing a terrorist before he can act is not only permitted according to Jewish law, it is obligatory.42

Tactic Used by the US

On many occasions, the US has adopted the principle of targeting killing. It was used to eliminate the terrorists who attacked the US on September 11, 2001, as well as by the American military in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and the Philippines. It was used in counterterrorism actions in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, particularly through drone attacks.43

After assuming office in 2009, President Obama increased American targeted killings, principally through drone strikes on al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban, but also by expanding the US “special operations kill/capture missions.”44 In fact, the total number of Obama’s targeted killings was six times the number of attacks approved by President George W. Bush during his two terms in office.45

The killing of Osama bin Laden in a US Navy SEAL raid in May 2011 and the September 2011 drone strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni cleric and al-Qaeda propagandist in the Arabian Peninsula, are prime illustrations of this escalated campaign.46

At the time of Bin Laden’s death, CIA Director John Brennan observed that the American military “conducts these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan.”47

As of January 22, 2013, the US conducted approximately 425 targeted killings in at least three countries, killing more than 3,000 people, according to Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. Eighty-five percent of all the targeted killings conducted in non-battlefield settings since 9-11 took place in Pakistan.48 Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) contends the number is 4,700.49

According to Zenko, the vast majority of these drone strikes “were not an effort to eliminate senior al-Qaeda members who pose a threat to the US homeland—which was the very reason armed drones were sent there in the first place.”50 In October 2001, when the war in Afghanistan began, the US army had 54 drones. As of February 2013, it had more than 4,000.51

We Cause Fewer Civilian Deaths Than They Do

In a speech on May 23, 2013, President Obama outlined his administration’s rationale for targeted action, explaining that, in the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, the US found that the terrorist leader had written: “We could lose the reserves to the enemy’s airstrikes. We cannot fight air strikes with explosives.”

Obama explained that other communications from al-Qaeda operatives confirm this as well. “Dozens of highly skilled al-Qaeda commanders, trainers, bomb makers, and operatives have been taken off the battlefield. Plots have been disrupted that would have targeted international aviation, US transit systems, European cities, and our troops in Afghanistan,” he said.

He recognized that much of the criticism against American use of targeted killings focused on civilian casualties. “There is a wide gap between US assessments of such casualties and non-governmental reports,” he said, agreeing that “it is a hard fact that US strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars.”

“Let us remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes,” he said.52

Fewer Civilian Casualties

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta insisted that targeted killing was “very frankly, the only game in town in terms of trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.”

The Wall Street Journal admitted that trying to determine the number of civilian casualties from drone attacks is very difficult, especially since neutral observers are often blocked from gaining access to the bombing sites and estimates differ significantly. Pakistani government and nonpartisan studies have exposed Taliban accusations to be outrageous exaggerations. The civilian toll was comparatively low, particularly when contrasted with previous conflicts.

However, the Journal noted, that drones make it easier to distinguish between combatants and civilians. “Never before in the history of air warfare have we been able to distinguish as well between combatants and civilians as we can with drones. Even if al Qaeda doesn’t issue uniforms, the remote pilots can carefully identify targets and then use Hellfire missiles that cause far less damage than older bombs or missiles. Smarter weapons like the Predator make for a more moral campaign,” the paper said.53

No Worse Than Snipers

Admiral Dennis Blair, former director of National Intelligence, advised thinking of drones “as long-range snipers in the military sense.”

For years, he explained, the US and other countries would dispatch small teams of snipers behind enemy lines under the guidance of military commanders “who would decide whom to kill and when.”

Drones, he suggested, “can and should be used, like many military weapons, under the normal procedures for law of war.”54

American Hypocrisy

Despite America’s heavy use of targeted killings, the US has, for years, hypocritically called for moderation whenever Israel has been forced to defend herself.

In the November 2012 “Pillars of Defense” action, Israel fired more than 1,500 high-powered missiles into the Gaza Strip, a densely populated area, resulting in 161 deaths, of which even Hamas was forced to admit 90 were terrorist fighters. Most of the non-combatant deaths were caused by Hamas, which used Palestinian-Arab civilians as human shields.

In contrast, when Syria fired a single missile into a bakery near Hama, more than 60 civilians were killed.55

The media, NGOs, and most foreign governments have refused to acknowledge the extreme care Israel employs to avoid collateral damage.

Israeli Precautions

Quite often Palestinian-Arab homes are used to store ammunition, bombs, and missiles. In Gaza, families, whether of their own free will or under compulsion, cooperate with Hamas.

Recognizing this, Israel understands that “in cases where there are people inside a house or building, we never strike the target without prior warning. We make phone calls, send leaflet flier warnings, or use a technique called ‘Knock on the Roof,’ where we fire very, very small, very precise tiny bombs onto the edge of the roof and then [the family] knows the attack is about to begin and everybody can go outside.”56

Before launching a strike, Israel makes sure there is extensive surveillance by diverse “branches of the military and intelligence services for weeks, months, or even years.” Using drones allows them to determine if the area is free of innocent civilians, and only when they are sure, is the F16 or Apache helicopter ordered to attack.

Dalou Family

No system is, of course, foolproof. The 2012 case of the Dalou family in Gaza, in which nine members were killed by a single Israeli missile strike, was an exception to Israel’s carefully planned method, which is why it received widespread media attention.57

The IDF noted that the Dalou residence was known to Israeli Intelligence as a hideout used by a senior militant operative in Hamas’s rocket-launching infrastructure.

Nevertheless, the IDF insisted that “all possible precautions were taken as the civilians in Gaza were not targets in this operation.”

“While the IDF regrets the loss of life on both sides, the responsibility ultimately lies with terror operatives who use the civil population as human shields when using civilian buildings as hideouts or to store weaponry,” said the Israelis.58

Popular Moral Tactic

Not surprisingly, targeted killing enjoys popular support in Israel due in large measure to the transparency of the process. Working with the Israeli media, the Shin Bet ensures the public is aware of what the attacks entail. A number of NGOs monitor them and do not hesitate to contest the policy in the media and the courts.

Failed targeted killing attempts have not altered this support. If anything, they have reinforced it because the failed efforts stress the policy’s risks and complexities and go a long way towards informing the public about the nature of the practical and moral compromises involved.59

It seems clear that as long as Israel’s enemies continue attacking Israeli citizens, the Jewish state will use whatever legal and moral means it must in order to protect them, even if that means targeted killings.

“Far from being morally questionable, it would be difficult to come up with an approach in warfare that rests on stronger moral grounds,” concluded Professor David.60

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Footnotes

1. Gal Luft, “The Logic of Israel’s Targeted Killing,” Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2003, 3.

2. Natan Sharansky, “Don’t set a double standard for Israel on norms of war,” The Washington Post (August 15, 2014); Steven R. David, “Fatal Choices: Israel’s Policy of Targeted Killing,” The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Mideast Security and Policy Studies Number 51 (September 2002): 6, 16; Michael L. Gross, “Assassination and Targeted Killing: Law enforcement, Execution or Self-Defence?” Journal of Applied Philosophy Volume 23 Number 3.

3. Joel Greenberg, “Israel Affirms Policy of Assassinating Militants,” The New York Times (July 5, 2001).

4. Gerstenfeld, “The world blames Israel,” op.cit.

5. Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Bin Laden versus Yassin,” Ynet (March 5, 2011).

6. Luft, op.cit;  James Bennet, “Stalemate in Mideast After Deadly Bombing,” The New York Times (July 28, 2002); David, “Fatal Choices: Israel’s Policy of Targeted Killing,” The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Mideast Security and Policy Studies, op.cit.4, 9; Asaf Zussman and Noam Zussman, “Targeted Killings: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Counterterrorism Policy,” Discussion Paper Number 2005.02 Bank of Israel Research Department (October 2005): 2-3; for an explanation of the units of the  ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, and the weapons used by each, please see “The ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades’ Weapons And Units,” MEMRI Special Dispatch 5830 (September 2, 2014).

7. Luft, op.cit; Daniel Byman, “Do Targeted Killings Work?” Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006); Amos Yadlin, “Ethical Dilemmas in Fighting Terrorism,” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Volume 4, Number 8 (November 25, 2004).

8. Laura Blumenfeld, “In Israel, a Divisive Struggle Over Targeted Killing,” The Washington Post (August 27, 2006).

9. Ibid.

10. Moshe Yaalon, Avi Dichter and Dennis Ross, “Lessons from the Fight against Terrorism,” The Washington Institute Policywatch 533 (December 29, 2005); Moshe Yaalon, “Ethical Dilemmas in Counterterrorism,” Azure Number 30 (Autumn, 2007).

11. Blumenfeld, op.cit.

12. Isabel Kershner,” Israeli Panel Finds No Crime in 2002 Assassination,” The New York Times (February 27, 2011);The three-member board, led by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice, determined the collateral damage was “disproportionate,” due to “incorrect assessments and mistaken judgment based on an intelligence failure in the collection and transfer of information.”

13. Blumenfeld, op.cit.

14. Luft. op.cit; Byman, op.cit; Pedahzur, op.cit. 40-46.

15. Byman, op.cit.

16. Blumenfeld, op.cit.

17. Gerald M. Steinberg, “Israel’s Right To Self-Defense,” The Wall Street Journal (February 23, 2010); see Alan Dershowitz, “If Israel Killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Did it Have the Right To?” Huff Post World (February 18, 2010).

18. Blumenfeld, op.cit.

19. Ibid.

20. Luft, op.cit; David E. Sanger, “Bush Denounces Israeli Airstrike as ‘heavy Handed,’” The New York Times (July 24, 2002); Zussman and Zussman, op.cit.2-3; Isabel Kershner, “Israeli Panel Finds No Crime in 2002 Assassination,” The New York Times (February 27, 2011); Caleb Carr, “Costs of Targeting Civilians,” The New York Times (July 27, 2002) Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism (New York:  Columbia University Press, 2009), 80,110, 122.

21. Byman, op.cit.

22. David, op.cit. 11.

23. Luft, op.cit.

24. Byman, op.cit.

25. Luft, .op.cit.

26. Byman, op.cit; as former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained, “The plan is to place the terrorists in varying situations every day and knock them off balance so that they will be busy protecting themselves.” Deborah Sontag, “Israelis, Suspecting Mortars, Raid Camp; 2 Arabs Die,” The New York Times (April 12, 2001); Luft, op.cit Pedahzur, op.cit. 103-110.

27. Luft, op.cit.

28. Pedahzur, op.cit.104-105; Mosab Hassan Yousef, op.cit.55; Byman, op.cit.

29. “Israeli Strike on Hamas Leader Raed Attar Foiled Gaza-Area Paraglider Attack — ‘Attar’s Assassination Has Disrupted Everything,’” Algemeiner (September 1, 2014).

30. Ibid.

31. Luft, op.cit.

32. Ibid; “The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,” U.N. General Assembly resolution 54/109, Dec. 9, 1999, at http://www.un.org/law/cod/finterr.htm).

33. Luft, op.cit; Palestinian song encourages more terror: “Run [them] over, destroy, annihilate, blow them up; “Don’t let the Zionist live long O Al-Aqsa, we’re your defenders O son of Jerusalem, cry ‘Allah is great’!” “Wait for them at the intersection Let the settler drown in red blood Terrorize them,” Palestinian Media Watch (November 10, 2014); “Following spate of vehicle terror attacks, IDF to deploy barricades across West Bank,” The Jerusalem Post (November 10, 2014); “Abbas’ advisor about terrorists who ran over and killed Israelis and shooter of Rabbi Glick: The heroes of Jerusalem… answered the call of the homeland, the call of Jerusalem, in response to the occupation’s actions, to its arrogance, and its defilement of the Al-Aqsa Mosque,’” Palestinian Media Watch (November 7, 2014), Khaled Abu Toameh, “Palestinians’ “Car Intifada” and Obama’s Peace Process,” Gatestone (November 7, 2014); “PA National Security Forces:  Israel is raping Al-Aqsa,” Palestinian Media Watch (November 5, 2014); Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), 380.

34. Luft, .op.cit; Military Advocate General, Brigadier-General Menachem Finkelstein, supported this policy when he said on January 9, 2001, “The IDF has the legal right to fight ‘hostile elements’ in the territories in exceptional and extraordinary cases, when the purpose is to save lives and in the absence of any other alternative.”

35. Avi Kober, “Targeted Killing during the Second Intifada: The Quest for Effectiveness,” Journal of Conflict Studies, Volume 27, Number 1 (Summer 2007): 78.

36. David, op.cit. 14.

37. Ibid. 15. Moore is director of the Center for National Security Law and the University of Virginia Law School.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid. 15-16.

40. Ibid. 16.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid. 14.

43. Jonathan Masters, “Targeted Killings” Council on Foreign Relations (May 23, 2013); Tara McKelvey, “Media Coverage of the Drone Program,” Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy Discussion Paper, Series #D-77 (February 2013); Tara McKelvey, “Inside the Killing Machine,” Newsweek (February 13, 2011); Justus Reid Weiner, J.D. “Targeted Killings and Double Standards,” Arutz 7 (August 6, 2012).

44. Master, op.cit.

45. Tara McKelvey, “Media Coverage of the Drone Program,” Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy Discussion Paper, Series #D-77 (February 2013):2. Masters, op.cit.

46. Masters, op.cit; Scott Shane and Thom Shanker, “Strike Reflects U.S. Shift to Drones in Terror Fight,” The New York Times (October 1, 2011).

47. Philip Alston, “The CIA and Targeted Killings Beyond Borders,” Harvard Law School National Security Journal Volume 2 (January 9, 2012): 286.

48. Jonathan Masters, “U.S. Drone Strike Policies,” Council on Foreign Relations (January 22, 2013).

49. Karen J. Greenberg, “Assessing U.S. Drone Strike Policies,” Council on Foreign Relations (March 1, 2013).

50. Micah Zenko, “Obama’s Armed Drones in Iraq Reek of Mission Creep,” Council on Foreign Relations (June 30, 2014).

51. Micah Zenko, “Obama’s Armed Drones in Iraq Reek of Mission Creep,” Council on Foreign Relations (June 30, 2014).

52. Barack Obama, “President Obama’s Speech at National Defense University: The Future of our Fight against Terrorism, May 2013,” Council on Foreign Relations (May 23, 2013); for an analysis of the views on the efficacy of targeted killings by the U.S., please see Patrick B. Johnston and Anoop K. Sarbahi, “The Impact of U.S. Drone Strikes on Terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” patrickjohnston.info/materials/drones. Pdf (February 11, 2014); Daniel Byman, “Why Drones Work: The Case for Washington’s Weapon of Choice,” Foreign Affairs, (July/August 2013); Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Why Drones Fail: When Tactics Drive Strategy,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2013); Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011).

53. “The Drone Wars: Weapons like the Predator kill far fewer civilians,” The Wall Street Journal (January 9, 2010); Spencer Ackerman, “41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground,” The Guardian (November 24, 2014);  “US drone programme: ‘Strict, fair and accountable’ – Kerry, BBC (May 28 2013); “Remarks of John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, on Ensuring al-Qa’ida’s Demise — As Prepared for Delivery,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary (June 29, 2011).

54. Masters, “U.S. Drone Strike Policies,” op.cit.

55. Alster, op.cit.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Byman, op.cit.

60. David, op.cit. 17.

Alex Grobman, a Hebrew University-trained historian, is a senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

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