A good surprisingly good column from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reprinted from the Independent, on the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. I don't know if it was the prudent or wise thing for Israel to kill Yassin now, but it's nonsense to call him the "spiritual" leader of Hamas (the spirituality of murdering Jews?), and it's equally nonsense to focus on the fact that he was in a wheelchair as if that meant that he was a mere figurehead. Yassin was the founder of a murderous organization whose goal is to destroy the state of Israel. Hamas is not interested in a two-state solution, and never pretended that it was. The Hamas Covenant mentions the Protocols of the Elders of Zion approvingly.

As Part III, article 11, states: "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it."

Part III, article 12, states: "[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion."

Part III, article 22 details "the powers which support the enemy." These include, "the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, B’nai B’rith and the like."

Part IV, article 32 says, "For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there."