The ongoing battle between Israelis and Palestinians in The West Bank and The Gaza Strip is decades old. From suicide bombings, to concentrated retaliatory attacks - to all-out battles in residential streets - its as if every day in that part of the world is September 11th. But while every attack perpetrated in that region by either side is horrific - I feel that, this morning, Israel might have taken the conflict to a dangerously new level by assassinating Hamas Founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Called by many Israeli leaders as, "The Godfather of Suicide Bombers" and by others as "The Palestinian Osama Bin Laden," Sheik Ahmed Yassin founded the Islamic Militant Group Hamas in 1987, which means "zeal" and is also the Arab acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas rejects the existence of Israel and opposes any and all interim peace accords. One goal of Hamas and Sheik Yassin is to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza to be used as a temporary base to destroy Israel. "Islam is the only answer," Yassin told The Associated Press in 1997, "Everything springs from that." In order to carry out their goal of destroying Israel, Sheik Yassin has personally ordered at least 112 suicide bombings over the years that have killed more than 474 people.

Yassin, who was in his mid-sixties and was both blind and a quadriplegic, was killed instantly when an Israeli helicopter launched three missiles at him at approximately 5:30am this morning as he left a Mosque after morning prayers. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who personally authorized the assassination of Sheik Yassin, said it is, "the natural right of the Jewish people, like that of all nations in the world that love life, to hunt down those who rise to destroy it."

While I can see the need for Sheik Yassin's death and can understand why Israel wanted to carry out this assassination so badly - I think they may have made a very serious mistake by assassinating him at this time.

First of all, besides the obvious tension that always exists in The Middle East, anger is at an all time high now due to the Iraqi war, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the ongoing search for Osama Bin Laden, and the constant call for more attacks against the United States by such groups as Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. That said, I feel that assassinating Sheik Yassin now just threw unnecessary kerosene on an already raging fire. If it takes nothing but unprovoked hatred for Hamas to launch devastating attacks against Israel - what will they do now that Israel has killed their founder and leader?

In fact, just hours after the assassination at the funeral procession, more than 200,000 Palestinians, some carrying billowing green Hamas flags, flooded the streets and followed Yassin's body to its final resting place, vowing revenge in retaliation for Yassin's death not only against Israel - but against the United States as well. "Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts," said Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh immediately following the attack.

With less than twelve hours since the assassination, and with the world both reacting to what happened and waiting for what will happen as a result of Sheik Yassin's death, I wonder what consequences will come of Israel's action...

...remember, it was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand that started World War I.