This typically insightful David Warren piece puts the recent Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin into perspective within the Byzantine political landscape of the Middle East. Here are a few excerpts, beginning with the moral question:

On the moral question, whether it was right for the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to order the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, there is no difference from the question whether it would be right to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden co-founded Al Qaeda, Yassin founded Hamas. These are organizations which exist for the express purpose of killing people; Qaeda being committed to killing “Crusaders and Zionists” plus bystanders; Hamas more specifically Jews plus bystanders. The question is not whether one should do it, but how.
The Israelis calculate Sheikh Yassin cost them 377 dead and 2,076 maimed — including only a handful in military uniform. He was known to personally order the hits, and he ordered hundreds of them, both through Hamas and affiliates; culminating in last week’s attack on the Israeli port of Ashdod, in which terrorists very nearly succeeded in blowing up large stores of toxic industrial chemicals. That was also the first successful “vengeance operation” (I use Al Jazeera’s terminology) mounted from inside Gaza, since the Israelis succeeded in fencing the territory — a “heritage moment” in Hamas propaganda. Yassin is the reciprocal Israeli heritage moment.

And then the pragmatic issue:

The Israelis are calculating that the advantages of disrupting the management of Hamas, which actually delivers the terrorism, outweigh the disadvantage of providing them with a recruitment tool. Most seasoned observers of the Middle East would guess they got it right. It is certainly the calculation the Bush administration has made, in going after Qaeda’s senior management; and it appears to be working — preventing more terrorist hits than it inspires.

And finally the political analysis:

Strange to say (and I can hear the guffaws of my numerous if inattentive leftwing readers) the assassination was a typically moderate act. Note [Ariel Sharon] killed Sheikh Yassin, and not Yasser Arafat, though the latter is also up to his ears in innocent Israeli blood, and the IDF know where to find him.
The unbelievable truth is that Mr. Sharon is trying to advance the “peace process”, by giving Arafat’s Palestinian Administration a leg up on Hamas, before their inevitable civil war. For despite all its butchery, even Arafat ‘s Fatah is the slightly more accommodating party. The only thing that keeps Fatah and Hamas together is their common target of Israel; with Israel removed, they become two scorpions in a bottle. There are big risks in weighing in so decisively, but even bigger ones if Hamas succeeds in its ambition of ruling Gaza after the Israeli departure.