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03/22/2004: "Leading terrorist dead, UK FM mourns"

Israel yesterday killed one of the world's leading terrorists, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, a man who has planned hundred of suicide bombings and personally approved the use of women as suicide bombers. As such, he was a disgrace to Islam, though at least one Gaza Strip religious leader said that Israel has "declared war on Islam." The most bizarre reaction I've read, however, is from Britain's Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, who said that Israel's action was “unlawful, unacceptable and unjust.”

Unjust? Unjust? The man was a mass murderer. Israel and Hamas are at war, the latter having never wavered from its declared intent to destroy the Jewish state. How do you figure his killing is any more unjust than the killing of any other Hamas terrorist, Jack? It may not be politically expedient–only time will tell about that–but unjust is a real stretch.

Let me ask you this, Jack. If British intelligence had been able to pinpoint Hitler's location in June of 1940, and the RAF had been able to kill him in an air raid, would that have been "unlawful, unacceptable, and unjust"? And if not, how is that different from Israel's current situation vis-a-vis Hamas?