Israel’s critics strangely silent on Obama’s targeted killings in Pakistan, no sign of a Goldstone Report against NATO

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
16 October '10

Remember the uproar in 2004 when the Israelis took out Hamas terror bosses Ahmed Yassin and Abdelaziz Rantissi in targeted assassinations? Referring to the latter, the French foreign ministry sniffed at the time that “extrajudicial executions are contrary to international law and unacceptable…”. EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana described the killing of Yassin as “extremely terrible”, while as David Hornik reminds us in a recent piece on Pajamas Media, even the Bush administration tended to describe Israeli actions as “unhelpful”.

But hold on a second, just what is the politically correct and impeccably multilateralist Obama administration (with the help and complicity of many EU governments) doing right now in Pakistan with all these drone attacks? According to Yediot Aharonot analyst Ron Ben-Yishai (again quoted in Hornik’s article), since entering the White House Obama has authorised 122 assassination raids by unmanned drones on senior people in Pakistan’s terrorist infrastructure.

The figures are rising fast. In September, the number of publicly admitted drone attacks was 22. And they are extremely deadly too. In 2009, more than 700 people were killed, many if not most of whom will have been civilian bystanders. By the end of this year, the death toll is likely to have far exceeded the 1,400 or so estimated to have died in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

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