Cycle of Mideast violence

After an Israeli missile killed the founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas early Monday, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice called on parties in the Middle East to step back "and try now to be calm."

The advice proved to be wishful thinking. Protests quickly erupted throughout the region. In one of the largest Palestinian demonstrations ever, hundreds of thousands poured into the streets, many taunting Israel to start preparing body bags for the revenge Hamas would exact. In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gloated that the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin had cut down one of "Israel's greatest enemies," and he vowed a stepped-up war against terror.

Members of Sharon's government justify the strike on Yassin as a way to avenge suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Israelis since 2000, including at least 10 attacked by Palestinian militants days earlier. But their reasoning relies on faulty logic.

The death of one Hamas leader will no more halt attacks on Israel than the killing of a top al-Qaeda leader would end the U.S. war on terrorism, be he Osama bin Laden or the No. 2 who was the focus of a weekend manhunt in Pakistan. The global terrorism network now is more diffuse and less vulnerable to the loss of any one key figure, anti-terrorism experts say.

In the Middle East, retaliatory assassinations take the Israelis and Palestinians further from any resolution of their conflict. And the killing of Yassin and six other people in an attack by a helicopter gunship came just as some tentative signs for advancing peace prospects have emerged.

In recent weeks, Sharon has been winning converts to his plans to force 7,500 Israeli settlers out of the occupied Gaza Strip and give the 1.3 million Palestinians in the territory more self-rule. On Monday, Rice said Sharon's ideas might provide new opportunities for reaching a peaceful settlement. That's something Israelis increasingly want after more than three years of violence, according to public opinion polls.

Their attitude helps explain why Israeli opposition leaders and some members of Sharon's government viewed Yassin's assassination as a setback. They warned it would set off of a new cycle of violence.

Rice tried to minimize the fallout from the killing by telling NBC's Today show that "there is always a possibility of a better day in the Middle East."