Israel's 'Focused Prevention' Program
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~Avneri Likens Ze'evi Death To IDF Killings; 'Yassin Outranked Ze'evi~

By Haaretz Service
15/03/2006

Attacking The IDF siege of the Jericho prison as a campaign ploy by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, leftist activist and ex-MK Uri Avneri Tuesday termed the 2001 assassination of cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi a targeted killing, and said that slain Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin "was certainly of a higher rank" than Ze'evi.

"This was an almost-uncamouflaged campaign ploy by Olmert, prepared in a cabl with the British and Americans," Avneri said of the IDF operation, in which a nine-hour siege ended with the surrender of Ze'evi's killers.

Avneri spoke as far-left activists demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the IDF raid, calling it a flagrant violation of agreements under which Ahmed Sa'adat, head of the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Palestine, and five other Palestinian militants were held under the auspices of American and British monitors.

The monitors left the prison early Tuesday, in the wake of a statement by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the six would be freed. The IDF surrounded the building soon after the monitors left. Israel believes Sa'adat ordered and masterminded the Ze'evi killing.

Avneri, in remarks broadcast on Israel Radio, drew a direct parallel between Ze'evi's 2001 death and Israel's program of assassinating leaders of armed Palestinian groups.

"There are hundreds of people among us who carried out 'Focused Preventions'
[Assassinations], which included the murders of passers-by," Avneri said.

"The killing of cabinet minister Ze'evi was a focused prevention in the true meaning of the term. Those who extol focused preventions cannot say that when we do it to other's it's great, it's a national act, but when other's do it to us, it's a horrible crime."

Asked by a reporter if he stood by his description of the killing of an Israeli cabinet minister in a Jerusalem hotel as a focused prevention, Avneri replied,

"We have killed dozens of people of the stature of cabinet ministers on the other side."

Avneri, referring to the 2004 assassination of the Hamas leader, as well as to Ze'evi's
"Transfer" plan, said that "Sheikh Yassin was certainly of a higher rank than Rehavam Ze'evi."

"Rehavam Ze'evi openly advocated the expulsion of all the Arabs from the country, and I don't see a difference in principle between this and the killing of the leaders of all the Palestinian factions."

Source:
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/694199.html