Assassination Will Escalate Mideast Violence March 29, 2004 The Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA, the oldest interfaith pacifist organization in the United States, deplores the deliberate and officially sanctioned killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, spiritual leader of the militant Hamas organization, and mourns the Israeli and Palestinian lives that will inevitably be lost as a direct result of this assassination. The FOR recognizes that Hamas, under Yassin's direction, has brought death to hundreds of Israeli civilians, and injury to thousands. Hamas has vowed to destroy Israel. But countering violence with violence only begets more violence. Assassinating political enemies is as criminal and immoral as any other murder. Moreover, we believe that killing Yassin (and seven other people near him at the time) will not achieve its presumed purpose of enhancing the safety of Israelis. Rather, it is likely to escalate the destructive cycle of rage and retaliation that has already resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians in Israel and Palestine. While we deplore the suicide bombings perpetrated by groups like Hamas, we also decry the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and the brutally repressive conditions it creates – conditions that have led some Palestinians to believe that violent attacks against Israeli civilians are justified. We recognize that the United States is no honest broker in this conflict, but rather an enabler of the Israeli occupation by virtue of its massive military and economic support, and its failure to issue any but the mildest rebukes of Israeli excesses. The assassination will make it harder to break out of the current “zero sum” conflict, in which one side’s advancement necessitates the other side’s defeat. It has already dealt a body blow to Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers who struggle daily, often against hostile and cynical forces in their own communities, to persuade others to forego mutual destruction for a future of compassion and justice in which all can be winners. As nonviolent peacemakers, we must strengthen our, and their, resolve to cherish all human life, even when it exists in the vortex of conflict, rage, and despair. We pray for Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers at this time. May they find strength in the face of this new violence to reach out to their neighbors, all children of Abraham, and to continue working nonviolently for a just solution in the land they will always share. Contact: Jennifer Hyman FOR Communications Coordinator (845) 358-4601 communications@forusa.org   ©2004 Fellowship of Reconciliation