Straw man
“Targeted assassinations of this kind are unlawful, unjustified and counterproductive”? So they’re not justified by the hundreds of Israeli civilians murdered on order Rantissi gave or approved of? If the British military had been able to kill Hitler and Göring in 1940, would that have been unlawful, unjustified, and counterproductive?
LONDON (AFP) – British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw condemned Israel’s killing of Hamas chief Abdelaziz Rantissi, saying that such tactics were both wrong and unhelpful to peace.
“The British government has made it repeatedly clear that so-called targeted assassinations of this kind are unlawful, unjustified and counterproductive,” Straw said in a brief statement.
Rantissi was assassinated in an air strike in Gaza City on Saturday night, less than a month after Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike.
At the time, British Prime Minister Tony Blair had condemned the killing of Yassin, saying that Israel had a right to defend itself but calling the assassination a “setback” for peace in the Middle East.
Rantissi was recently named among Hamas leaders whose assets in Britain were being frozen.