Hamas as an inveterate enemy of all peace and compromise is not accurate. Of course, ten years of bloodshed, suicide bombings, and targeted assassinations have passed since then. But even now, the picture is much more complex than meets the eye.
There are different tendencies in Hamas. The ideological hard core does indeed refuse any peace or compromise with Israel. They consider it a foreign implantation in Palestine, which in Islamic doctrine is a Muslim "waaf' (religious grant). But many Hamas sympathizers do not treat the organization as an ideological center but rather as an instrument for fighting Israel in pursuit of realistic objectives.
Sheikh Yassin himself announced some months ago in a German paper that the fight would be discontinued after the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Recently, he offered a "hudna" (truce) for 30 years. (Which strongly reminds one of Ariel Sharon's suggestion that Israel would give up the Gaza Strip and retain large parts of the West Bank for an interim phase to last for 20 years.)
Therefore, the murder of the sheikh did not serve any positive aim. It was an act of folly.
The three generals who actually direct the affairs of Israel-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Minister of Defense Sha'ul Mofaz, and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon-maintain that "in the short run" the assassination would indeed increase the attacks on Israeli citizens, but "in the long run" it would help to "rout terrorism." They are very careful not to spell out when the "short run" ends and the "long run" begins. Our generals do not believe in timetables.
I take the liberty to tell these three illustrious strategists: nonsense in tomato juice! (as they say in Hebrew slang). Or rather, nonsense in blood.
In the short run, this action endangers our personal security; in the long run it represents an even greater danger to our national security.
In the short run, it has increased the motivation for Hamas to carry out deadly attacks. Every Israeli understands this and is taking extra precautions these days. But the less obvious results are much more threatening.
In the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children in the Palestinian territories and the Arab countries, this murder has raised a storm of rage and thirst for revenge, together with feelings of frustration and humiliation in view of the impotence of the Arab world. This will produce not only thousands of new potential suicide bombers inside the country, but also tens of thousands of volunteers for the radical Islamic organizations throughout the Arab world. (I know, because at the age of 15 I joined the armed underground in similar circumstances.)