WASHINGTON -- Does anyone know the name of the National Public
Radio interviewer who was so disdainful of Israel's ambassador to
the United States on the morning of December 31? I missed his
name. I would like to give him an award for sarcasm, rudeness,
and, well, controlled rage. Perhaps he would accept my shoes.
The interviewer is perhaps a graduate of one of our country's
esteemed anger management centers. Yet I wonder what made him so
angry. Very theatrically he cut the Israeli ambassador off in the
midst of the ambassador's variations on the theme of peace and
goodwill and that sort of thing.
I wonder what made the NPR catastrophist so angry. I can
understand the professional journalist suffering some mild pique.
The ambassador obviously was not giving him the answers he
sought. Yet this fellow was downright contemptuous. To employ a
word currently in fashion, I would say his response to the
Israeli ambassador was disproportional.
It is dreadful that Gaza, one of the most densely populated
places on earth, is under heavy aerial bombardment from Israel.
Yet Hamas, the governing entity in Gaza, has been lobbing
shrapnel-filled missiles into Israel on a regular basis for
months. Two weeks ago Hamas arbitrarily broke its six-month
ceasefire with Israel, and the danger to Israeli life and
property has gotten worse. How many missiles is Israel to suffer
before it is warranted to defend its territory and its people?
Now that word "disproportional" is being raised among foreign
policy elites. Israeli air strikes since Saturday have killed
several hundred Palestinians and injured several thousand. So we
are hearing that the Israeli actions are "disproportional." I can
almost imagine a learned seminar being convened here in
Washington wherein the assembled gogues excogitate precisely how
many incoming Hamas missiles will warrant one air strike or more.
And how will these advocates of proportionality factor in the
targets of the Israeli air strikes? It is tragic that Palestinian
civilians are dying, but Hamas locates its military installations
and administrative facilities in civilian areas precisely to
dissuade Israel from attacking Hamas as it insouciantly bombards
Israel, its soldiers, and more frequently its civilians.
A couple of decades back I wrote that the Palestinian terrorists
-- and Hamas is a fully accredited terrorist group -- were the
only fighters I knew of that target civilians rather than
soldiers. That was pretty much true back then. Yet as terrorist
organizations have proliferated the targeting of solely civilians
has become widespread throughout the world. Now apparently the
civilized world has become accustomed to this outrage. Yet it is
to Israel's credit that it remains outraged by a terrorist group
that would target noncombatants for strategic purposes.
I have no idea how many Hamas strikes against civilians warrant
how many Israeli acts of retribution. Frankly, such calculations
strike me as beside the point. The real question is how many
Israeli strikes are needed to close down Hamas? That is what is
necessary. The Israelis have at their border a violent,
unprincipled enemy that has vowed to destroy Israel. Hamas not
only vows to destroy Israel, it bombards Israel and expects the
world to object when Israel counterattacks. Now that strikes me
as irrational. Hamas should accept the consequences of its
assaults on Israel. Hamas might even renew the ceasefire that it
broke. For that matter Hamas might end its war against Israel. I
doubt the Israelis would object.
