Proportionality in War Is a Joke
You'll see talk floating around corporate media figures wondering out loud as to whether or not the response from Israel to Hamas's terrorist attacks last Saturday is "proportional."
The idea is to put pressure, not on Israel, but on the public to think that Israel is going too far with its retaliation in Gaza. This would, in turn, cause the public's opinion to sway against Israel's complete extermination of Hamas, thus pressuring world leaders to pressure Israel to pull back on their assaults.
It's a ridiculous domino effect that only benefits terrorists, will get more innocents killed, and give organizations like Hamas the opening to deal even more damage.
The idea of "proportionality" was brought up to author Douglass Murray during an interview on Talk TV, and his response may go down in history as one of the greatest arguments against "proportionality" in history.
When asked if Israel's response was proportional, Murray responded that this is merely a British fetish and that, if we're actually going to talk about an equal response from Israel, then perhaps Israel should find a music festival in Gaza — which they won't — and rape and kill the same number of women Hamas did that fateful Saturday. Perhaps they should torture the same number of innocent people and kill or kidnap the same number of children.
Murray's reasoning about proportionality truly highlights the ridiculous idea about it, and it's summed up with Murray's icing for this stupid cake.
"Proportionality in conflict is a joke."
Murray is right. An equal response in war to an attack is a pipe dream that only the ignorant could truly believe is realistic. Despite modernity having so warped our brains into believing in things like equal opportunity or even equal outcomes, there is none of this in war.
The goal of war isn't an eye for an eye; it's to make sure that the group that took your eye never has the resources, manpower, or wherewithal to try to take your — or anyone else's — eye again. It is the show of such overwhelming and deadly force that your enemy is crippled to the point of never getting back up again or, if possible, the complete destruction of them.
To highlight how important this is, I need only to direct you to World War 2, where America dropped two atomic bombs on the country of Japan in order to cause them to back down from a losing war they were refusing to end. The destruction these two bombs brought about had never been seen in human history. It was terrifying and took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
But the move ended the war. If America was concerned with proportionality, then there would have been no end to the war as Japan would have never surrendered, and the number that died under the bombs would have looked paltry by comparison.
If America was obsessed with proportionality during WW2, then the Nazi Party would have never been wiped out. In fact, America may not have played the role it did on the European front. The Nazis may have even won or, at the very least, held onto territories it took and maintained power over these countries.
But America did not concern itself with proportionality. It destroyed the German Army, hunted down Nazi leaders, and destroyed the party, root and stem. The party only now lives on in weirdo groups here in America, and its spirit haunts the Middle East. However, the Nazi Party is no more.
The only real response to the actions of evil is the complete destruction of said evil. Evil sees proportionality and measures responses as weaknesses it can take advantage of, and it's not wrong. Evil doesn't learn its lesson or reconsider its actions once it faces the consequences for them. What it does learn is how to readjust so that it can carry out evil in new, more effective ways. When it's weakened, it works to rebuild its strength so that it can carry out acts of evil again.
It doesn't stop. It doesn't rest. It doesn't reason.
Israel's response should be terrifying and complete. It should not relent for a moment against Hamas. It should destroy its fighters, then hunt down its leaders wherever they may be and kill them. Public trials should be held that result in the very public executions of these terrorists. The destruction of Hamas should be total, and the message that will be sent with that total destruction will be loud and clear
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