Proportional Garbage

The attack on Israel elicited an immediate “blame Israel” barrage of responses from certain quarters of the political sandbox. The pushback, loud enough to be heard over their echo-chamber earplugs, seems to have surprised many who did so.

Some have been cowed into introspection, or more likely into fear of continued pushback, and there have been disavowals of such affronts as the joint letter from nearly two score Harvard student groups casting all blame on Israel for Hamas’ massacre. Alas, many continue with that notion, including the 2000 actors and artists who accused Israel of war crimes with nary a mention of Hamas. I'll take just a moment and cast some snark at actors, who make their careers repeating other people's words.

Such morons are easy to spot, easy to denounce, and easy to remember for future reference.

More irksome, because they take pains to hide behind some pretense of rationality and dispassion, are the "both-siders." There we find the two-staters, who haven't quite clued into the fact that Israel has been ready to accept a two-state solution for decades and that the real obstacle to that outcome is on the Arab side. It's Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and such terror-sponsoring nations as Iran that stand in the way of peace. They want Israel gone and Jews dead, full stop. But, since I already wrote about the two-staters, I'll move on to another "irksome" batch of dunderheads.

I speak (write?) of the "proportionals." As in those who urge Israel to be “proportionate” in its response.

What the [redacted] does that even mean?

Should Israel stop once it has killed either the same number, or the same percentage by population? Should Israel tally up all the Hamas rapes and rape that many in return? How about dead babies? Should Israel actually go out of its way to murder babies, but then stop when it murders the correct number of them?

I'm sure the response would be "no, of course that's not what I mean," but that doesn't change the fact that "proportionate" is nonsense. It is a veneer over the truth: that these people don't want Israel to retaliate any more than it already has. They are no different than the "ceasefire" advocates who, deep down, want Hamas to continue its terroristic war against Israel and Jews. It's also a "standard" that you only ever hear applied to Israel.

The nonsense that it is, unfortunately, provides those who want to side with Hamas (or the Palestinians in general) with an excuse to blame Israel for what Israel has to do at this point. That is, go into Gaza, root out as much of Hamas' leadership as it can, try and rescue hostages, and destroy Hamas' war-making ability to as great a degree as possible. Anything less would simply allow Hamas to re-arm and to attempt a similar atrocity in the future.

Unfortunately, this effort, which will likely ebb quickly after a major initial action, will be a very long slog. Also unfortunately, that long slog will be met with persistent and ever-more-insistent demands that "you've retaliated enough, get out of Gaza now."

As if a mere counterpunch is sufficient to end the fight and establish peace.

Just as we must not let the sympathizers and apologists get away with their conflations and outright lies (the NY Times, WaPo, and other main-line news sources gave Hamas a massive gift in reporting, without caveat or fact-check, that Israel had blown up a hospital), we must not accommodate or let go unchallenged people who blather such garbage as "proportionate response."