Friday, January 02, 2009

On Disproportionality - What Do You Do?

I do not know a DavidN but he left this comment over on an article my friend Michel Gurfinkiel published at Pajamas Media

DavidN:

Allow me to propose a simple scenario to those who speak of “disproportionate” Israeli responses. Suppose three men break into your house, and kill *one* of your family members. You have a pistol, and you manage to kill one of them. You’re not certain what will happen if you leave the other two alone; they may try and kill the rest of your family, them may leave and try again later. They’ve been very clear that they hate you and everything you stand for, and they’re very clear also that they’d *like* to kill everyone in your house. Do you let them go, because you’ve already responded “proportionally”? How naive can you get?


I think that needs wider distribution and am doing my bit for the cause.

I would add to that example above this point:

If two men break into your house, one kills, God forbid, your son and the other rapes your wife, and you overpower them, and in the fight kill the one who murdered your son, do you then rape the other guy?

14 comments:

g said...

So in your opinion, was the "invasion" of Georgia by Russia not a disproportional response too? Because it was presented as such in american media.

g said...

Your views are not any less radical than those of Hamas. Just from a different angle.
There are many alternatives to solve a conflict othan than by military force. But you should be willing to see it.

YMedad said...

Alternatives?

Please, after disenagagement, Hamas election victory, Hamas coup d'etat, Hamas missile fire, there are no alternatives except returning the situation to an earlier, quieter period which meands: no Hamas weapons or weapons-capability

g said...

Why couldn't Israel wait for a new leadership of Barack Obama? Arabs saw a hope for a dialogue in him. They actually wanted to talk to him, unlike with Bush, who everyone just lost any respect for.
Or are Israeli afraid that they won't be able to get away with things under Obama as they were able to do under Bush?
Like I said, there are alternatives, but you should be WILLING to consider these and not be stubbornly stuck on believe that Hamas is to blame for everything.

YMedad said...

hmmm. so why couldn't the Hamas wait. They unilaterally halted the ceasefire. They started the rocket fire.

g said...

The Israeli didn't uplift the siege either. That's why!

Hamas rockets killed israeli after the Israel started bombing, not before. Isn't it ironic?

Israel planted more seeds of hate in the world!

YMedad said...

Called before a Heavenly Court, the dead Hamasnik was asked how did the fight start with the dead Israeli looking on. "It started," said the Hamasnik, "when he hit me back!"

Galia, think about that.

g said...

Why to think about heavenly court, if it's hell on earth now that we've created.
You look like an older wise man, but with all due respect, you talk like a preschool kid with yours " he did it first". Who cares, who was first and who second!!! I know you've got plenty of reasons to blame palestinians, but can you move on and see where they are coming from for once! Maybe this will help
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/62753/top-5-lies-about-israel-39-s-assault-on-gaza.html

Peter Drubetskoy said...

Yisrael, you are a pathetic propagandist and cannot even keep the easily verifiable facts straight: Hamas did not "unilaterally halt the ceasefire", it was Israel, on Nov 4 (the election day, of course) that breached the ceasefire by destroying a tunnel, whose purpose it was not even sure about.

YMedad said...

Peter, Peter (oh, I once used that before)

Read carefully between the lines this UK Telegraph report:

The announcement came on the eve of the final day of a six-month truce between the two sides which had been brokered by Egypt.

"The calm is over," said Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman.

He said the ceasefire would not be renewed "because the enemy did not abide by its obligations" to ease a crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip and halt attacks.

It followed an outbreak of hostilities on Wednesday when Palestinian militants in Gaza fired rockets across the perimeter and the Israeli air force responded with airstrikes.

At least one Palestinian, believed to be a militant taking part in the launching of a rocket, was killed in an airstrike.

Several Israelis suffered slight injuries after more than two dozen rockets were fired into the town of Sderot.

It was the heaviest barrage since a ceasefire was agreed by both sides in June.

The ceasefire had come under growing strain since Israeli ground forces launched an attack into Gaza against what the Israeli army claimed was a group of Palestinians preparing to attack Israel.

This sparked a series of tit-for-tat exchanges which has built up steadily as the deadline for the ceasefire approached. In all 19 Palestinians, mostly militants, have died and no Israelis.

A senior Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhum, blamed Israel for the collapse of the truce and said that the Islamist group felt it a "national duty" for Palestinians to respond military to Israeli aggression.

"There is no possibility of renewing the truce which ends on December 19 (Friday),'' he said.

Peter Drubetskoy said...

Well, if you break the ceasefire, expect it to be broken, no? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I am not justifying Hamas actions but to present the situation as if Hamas is responsible for the broken ceasefire, when Israel was the one to break it, and when even Israeli intelligence and Shabak admitted that Hamas is interested in extending the truce in return for lifting the siege, is to distort the truth.

g said...

Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a “special security zone” within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.

YMedad said...

sorry, Peter, but i don't believe Arab propaganda. Hamas never intended to keep any ceasefire it "agreed" to, consistently built tunnels, smuggled in arms, created arms workshops, fired off rocktes occasionaly, tried to mine the fence, attack IDF, etc. so, you're taken in? But even if IDF somehow (I don't know how) violated the ceasefire - which it didn't - nevertheless the Hamas still had the option not to yield on the ceasefrie but to demand a renegotiation, no?

Peter Drubetskoy said...

And I don't believe the Israeli propaganda either. Again, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Yes, of course Hamas used the ceasefire to prepare better for the next confrontation, doh! but exactly so did Israel (only from the military point of view, as we know, since the whole Iron Dome program turned out to be a corrupt mess which couldn't protect the people of South from the get go: see this and this, for example; by the way, this is the same Barak who is corrupt and couldn't care less about the lives of the residents of the South, the same Barak whose guts you hate when it comes to his feeble confrontations with the violent settlers, the same Barak whom you applaud now, because when it comes to killing some Arabs he can only err on the side of not doing it enough.) I could in fact take the whole comment of yours and replace Hamas with Israel and ask you the same questions back.
Of course, Israel should have renegotiated the ceasefire, instead of going on a killing rampage and putting scores of its own citizens in harms way.