Israeli Response Disproportionate? Absolutely Not!

neo-neocon deconstructs and deflates the idea of a "proportional response".



The idea of a modern civilization takes a lot to maintain. It has an amazing capacity not only for repair, but also for self-replication, that would have been unthinkable sixty years ago. Nonetheless, the raw materials, the power, and most essentially, the skills base have got to be there to keep it functioning more or less at a reasonable level. Attacks that smash the power generators, kill the doctors and nurses, and prevent medicine and supplies from reaching the hospitals kill people just as certainly as a bullet to the head, even if the damage is done on a less personal level. Not to mention the direct casualties of the attacks that Israel has been suffering under since 1967. It's a miracle and unbelievable monument to the Israelis resourcefulness that they have a country at all after nearly forty years of this.



I am not interested in nearly sixty year old grievances of the Palestinians against the Israelis. There were two approximately equal populations of refugees created at the same time. One group, the entire world is familiar with. The other was created when Israel successfully defended herself at creation, and these were Jews against who the Islamic governments of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and others dispossessed as vengeance for the success of other Jews that the effected populations literally had no control over and little commonality with save a common religion. This second group, having been in their hearts Egyptians, Syrians, and Iraqis (among other nationalities), once dispossessed by bitter arabic governments who lacked the justifications Israel had, decided that if they were going to be treated as Israelis, they might as well become Israelis, and were welcomed with open arms, given citizenship, and made new lives for themselves. But they still have better claims against the Arab governments who threw their grandparents out of centuries old homes, than the descendants of Palestinians who at least committed treason towards Israel and were dispossessed for that very excellent reason. The Jews who were dispossessed committed no crimes and were dispossessed anyway. But since Israel was looking to create a prosperous modern nation, not nurse grievances, these dispossessed Jews were welcomed with open arms, and got on with the business of creating a new life on a new homestead. When you get to the bottom line, that is the story of Israel.



If there is any doubt in your mind that Israel has shown by words and deeds that it wishes to live in peace with Moslems, consider the fact that since its inception they have willingly granted citizenship and equal rights to Moslems who were willing to swear allegiance. They have Moslem political parties who participate in Israeli elections, Moslem soldiers who serve in the Israeli defense Forces, and any number of important personages who happen to be Moslems. Israel has been about the creation of a nation and a civilization, but her neighbors have given her no peace these last sixty years. The one time Israel attacked (1967), they had four nations outnumbering them twenty to one massing armed forces on their borders with clear signals of intentions to invade. Not to have struck pre-emptively in that situation would have been suicide, especially given that Israel's border in those days were far smaller and more difficult to defend (the West Bank reaches within nine miles of the Mediterranean, about half the distance of the typical American commute). Every other time, it has been an incessant pounding and escalation of attacks, or actual armed invasion, that forced Israel to either retaliate or suffer the destruction of their ability to form a state and a society.



Had the inhabitants of the West Bank tried to make a new life under the Israelis, they would have been full fledged participants in the Israeli political process by now. Egypt made peace and got the Sinai back in 1978. But ever since those territories came under Israeli control, two generations ago, they have been more interested in Death for Israelis than Life for Palestinians. Nor have Israel's arab neighbors done anything for the Moslem co-religionists like what Israel did for dispossessed jews. If they had, the problem would have vanished by now. But always the grievance against Israel was more important than the well-being of these people whose plight they supposedly hold in such concern. Israel has a large population of Jews descended from those expelled from Moslem lands who could nurse the same grievances, but have built new, successful lives for themselves and their descendants.



The point I am making is that the Israelis have taken every reasonable opportunity to turn the other cheek, which is not even a Jewish admonition, while the surrounding Islamic powers have done everything in their power to cut that Israeli other cheek off. Yes, I've got a lot of sympathy for third generation refugee camp residents, but I put the onus of responsibility for them being there where it belongs: on the Palestinian leadership and the Islamic powers surrounding Israel. Not upon Israel, which has done everything it reasonably could have short of suicide, in the name of peace.



This now appears to be ending. A people who have been trying to make peace with the Islamic world for sixty years, and who have received nothing but death and despite and destruction for their efforts, are running out of patience. When not only those running Israel, but their parents and grandparents and even great-grandparents can remember nothing but war against the Islamic self-appointed enemy, you can forgive them perhaps finally running out of patience and maybe taking a few destructive steps of their own to remove their enemies' ability to inflict that death and despite and destruction which Israel has suffered under for the past two generations.



Lebanon either is a sovereign state or they are not. If they aren't, Israel is pacifying a barbarous no-man's land which has been the source for continuing attacks upon it for at least thirty five years. If they are, then the Lebanese state is responsible for seeing to it that persons within its territory do not attack other sovereign states, and those states (Israel) who suffer recurring attacks are quite within international law to treat such attacks as acts of war. Any idea of "disproportionate response," by it's very nature, implicitly attempts to let intentional but largely less competent or less effective acts of aggression off the hook of responsibility; yet they were planned and attempted by persons who are legally competent adults. Had Osama's two planes missed the Trade Center Towers, it would still have been an act of war. If Mexico invaded but their army was routed by half a dozen Border Patrolmen, it would still be an act of war, just not a terrifically competent one. The intention of starting a conflict remains. Suppose the Japanese had misgauged when attacking Pearl Harbor and all crashed off the coast of Oahu. Do you think it likely FDR would have let them off the hook with a stern warning about "Don't let it happen again!"? No, their other attacks on the Philippines and Wake Island would have made their intentions all too obvious, and so it is in the Middle East today. There comes a time when it becomes obvious that the only way to get peace is not to rely upon a forbearance of a sworn enemy, which has been nonexistent in this case for sixty years; the way to peace is to remove your enemy's ability to wage war on you, no matter what it takes, whoever else suffers as a result. It is not as if those who suffer collateral damage have no responsibility or culpability for the series of events which led to said damage. By any reading of international law or moral and ethical guidelines of responsibility, those who had the responsibility for stopping those attacks and failed to do so, and failed to request assistance to do so, bear every bit as much of the blame as members of those terrorist organizations who made the actual attacks.



Now this morning while I was tightening up the article, news that Olmert Sets Conditions for End to Fighting. Quote, "the fighting in Lebanon would end when the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas were freed, rocket attacks on Israel were stopped, and the Lebanese army was deployed along the border." All obviously necessary conditions, and something any other country would demand under equivalent circumstances. Far more lenient than most countries would demand, as a matter of fact. Wars of conquest have been fought over less than Israel has suffered in the last few weeks, let alone over the sorry course of this conflict. To accuse them of disproportionate response is to invite laughter from anyone familiar with the actual events of the last sixty years in the Middle East.