DISPROPORTIONATE?

Malicious Intent - Frederick Grab
The notion that war is an appropriate response to attack is recognized in the UN Charter. And so Israel is now at war with Hamas and Hizballah. I believe that the acceptable level of retaliation primarily hinges, not on the relative degree of damage, but on the intent of the parties involved. In our own criminal justice system, intent is often an important element. Those responsible for the current attacks on Israel have the stated aim of its destruction. On the other hand, Israel has shown many times that it has no intention of destroying any of its Muslim neighbors. Its goal is simply to be allowed to live in peace. At present, death and martyrdom are major themes in radical Muslim rhetoric. How does a nation fight against an enemy so motivated which hides among a supposedly innocent civilian population?

The answer: by means of war. Casualties in this conflict are disheartening, but not extreme by the standard of any previous regional conflict. They would be reduced to zero if Hizballah and Hamas released their hostages and ceased their actions directed at the destruction of Israel. (Washington Times)

Who’s Dissin’ Whom - There’s a disproportionate response all right by Claudia Rosett (NRO))
As Israel fights to defend itself against the Iranian-and-Syrian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, are we really seeing a reckless, damaging and — yes — disproportionate response? You bet. But not from Israel. It’s coming from the U.N.

Hezbollah deliberately provoked this war on July 12 by kidnapping Israeli soldiers inside Israel’s borders, and has been launching rockets into Israel from a massive arsenal that under U.N. writ Hezbollah is not even supposed to possess. That was not the deal under which Israel, in keeping with U.N. wishes, withdrew entirely from southern Lebanon in 2000. The U.N. promise was that Hezbollah would be defanged and that U.N. peacekeepers would help the Lebanese government reestablish control over Hezbollah-infested terrain inside Lebanon.

Over the past six years, Israel honored its commitment to peace. The U.N. — disproportionately — required in practice no such compliance on the Lebanese side of the border. The “peacekeepers” of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, called UNIFIL, sat passively looking on, costing about $100 million a year and doing nothing to stop Hezbollah from trucking in weapons, digging tunnels, and running the armed protection rackets with which it has kept a grip on swathes of Lebanon, including the southern border with Israel, parts of the Bekaa, and southern Beirut. Before the current fighting, UNIFIL had most recently distinguished itself for a run-of-the-U.N.-mill financial swindle involving a contingent of Ukrainian peacekeeping troops. On that subject, whatever laws might have been violated, the U.N. has — as usual with U.N. scams — refused to release details. Now, UNIFIL peacekeepers have been reduced to casualties of the crossfire, while Secretary-General Kofi Annan urges that we take what the U.N. has done wrong already, and do more of it.

With its false promises, and disproportionate deals for “peace,” the U.N. left Israel exposed to the attack that has now come, and a war that Israel did not seek. Like America when attacked by al Qaeda, Israel has been fighting back. In response, U.N. officials have come close to trampling each other in their stampede to the media microphones — not to admit the U.N.’s own failure to stop Hezbollah, not to apologize for administering a phony peace that incubated this miserable war, but to denounce Israel.