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Looking at the list of American assassinations is jarring in that they are entirely after September 11th, in the context of the Middle East conflict and America's alliance with Israel. Israel's tradition of using assassination for political purposes and warfare goes back decades before. Certainly the evidence you've posted bolsters the case that these types of assassinations are brand new in the history of warfare and were introduced and normalized by Israel's methods in Palestine.
Russia is more comparable example. But take those two lists, the American and Russian, and compare that to the list of Israeli assassinations.
These lists would indeed suggest that Israel's reliance on assassinations in engaging in warfare is not precedented in world history.
Items 2 and 4 in the US list encompasses thousands of individuals. Vietnam alone includes more individual assassinations than the entire rest of the list. The US has assassinated so many people, you can't even get an accurate number or a list of names. That the Israeli list is so exhaustive is evidence against your claim.
Honestly, just the word "assassination" with its history is evidence against your claim.
The Phoenix Program was a counter-insurgency program, not created as an assassination program. Nobody considers all the Hamas killed in Gaza in 9 months to have been "assassinated." The assassinations mentioned in that Wikipedia article include things like car-bombing political figures and civilians, or sniping somebody in the back while they are in their garden.
i.e. from a Veteran of the program:
Even so, especially because much of the violence fell under the gray area of "assassination", the program was denounced and disbanded.
This stands in sharp contrast to the long history of assassinations in Israel where it's a matter of official policy and a longstanding pattern of behavior.
Ah, quibbling over definitions is always a fun time.
I contend that CIA-led ops going to a person's home in their village and killing them there, many times a civilian "infrastructure" and not even a soldier, is a central example of "assassination". This is without going into the kidnapping and torture even. In a few short years the US managed to do just that enough times that it will take Israel centuries to catch up, which means that whatever Israel does is hardly "unique".
On the other hand, if that doesn't count as "assassination" and neither does counter-insurgency or targeted killings, then what are you left with from the Israeli list? All the PLO members are just combatants hiding in other countries, everyone killed in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Judea and Samaria count as either counter-insurgency, seek and destroy or out-right combat - which is most of that list by the way - and now you're left with... what? a few tens of people at best? I'll raise you all the CIA attempts at Castro & other actual world leaders and call it even?
Now compare that to the Russian list, and I'd say "unique" goes right out the window.
Russia and the US are just easy modern-day examples, though. The most obvious refutation, as I hinted at earlier, are the original Assassins with hundreds of central-example stab-in-the-back killings of political leaders under their belts. I'm sure they would've done more if they had predator drones.
No, this is you quibbling over definitions in order to deny the obvious fact that assassinations have always been an operating tactic of the Zionist movement, and that the degree to which they have engaged in it is not precedented in world history and especially European history. Because your denial is so weak, you appeal to a single CIA operation which was mostly executed by the South Vietnamese themselves; an operation that became denounced and disbanded precisely because it evoked negative sentiment around the practice of assassination even though the operation was not created with that objective.
You are just playing dumb. You don't understand the difference between a firefight among insurgents and an occupying force, and car-bombing a Palestinian political writer? Or sending a mail-bomb to factory workers?
The definition of assassination makes clear the difference, you are just trying to fudge the definition to pretend that Israel's conduct in this realm is normal when it is absolutely not.
It's telling that the global hegemon, America, has engaged in a substantial amount of warfare in its history. And among all that, all you can do is point to this Vietnam Operation which actually proves the distaste European society has historically had towards the practice in order to justify the long-standing systematic policy of assassination embraced by the Zionist movement.
No, that one single example is so strong that it is simply sufficient, all on its own, to refute your claim. Nothing else is needed, despite your denials. If you feel otherwise, we can go into all the other CIA assassinations - both failed and successful - and tally those up. Castro alone is like 8 times.
As I said, simply count how many instances in the list are the former and how many are the latter. I’ll grant you a few tens of the latter. Most of that list, and especially from 2000 onwards, is basically just some militant getting airstriked.
How is it a strong example when:
The long history of the Zionist movement engaging in assassinations with car bombs, mail bombs, terrorist tactics as a matter of official policy for many decades absolutely stands out among European military history. It is not normal, or at least it was not until now.
Phoenix is a strong example because on its own it provides between hundreds to thousands of individual cases of central-example assassinations, which refutes any claim that similar Israeli actions could ever be unique. It’s also an example that you couldn’t possibly blame the Jews for. The specific perpetrators, official policy, subsequent public outrage or cessation of it don’t matter one way or another since my point isn’t “America bad”, it’s “assassinations aren’t uniquely Israeli”. Once again, the existence of the Order of Assassins should have been sufficient and obvious as well.
Do note that the only one doing any denial here is you. You’ve also ignored all other examples, I assume because they’re simply undeniable.
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