Richard Cohen thinks that Israel itself is a “mistake,” but doesn’t mind if it defends itself as it must against the forces of the global jihad. Go figure. Anyway, he’s right on this one:
If by chance you have the search engine LexisNexis and you punch in the words “Israel” and “disproportionate,” you run the risk of blowing up your computer or darkening your entire neighborhood. Just limiting the search to newspapers and magazines of the last week will turn up “more than 1,000 documents.” Israel may be the land of milk and honey but it certainly seems to be the land of disproportionate military response — and a good thing, too.
The list of those who have accused Israel of not being in harmony with its enemies is long and, alas, distinguished. It includes, of course, the United Nations and its secretary general, Kofi Annan. It also includes a whole bunch of European newspapers whose editorial pages call for Israel to respond, it seems, with only one missile for every one tossed its way. Such neat proportion is a recipe for doom.
The dire consequences of proportionality are so clear that it makes you wonder if it is a fig leaf for anti-Israel sentiment in general. Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness. For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy’s back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to re-establish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights.