When Dayan Dissed Disproportionality

I am reading, in the Hebrew, Benny Morris book on the period of the Arab infiltration attacks against Israel from 1949-1956.

In Chapter Ten, he recounts an event on the Jerusalem front when, after the Jordan Legion opened up fire across the front (remember?  Jerusalem used to be a divided city, sitting right on the border?) on the evening of June 30, 1954,

Davar

HaTzofeh

Israel responded, using, as did the Jordanians, mortar fire.  Many were wounded and there were fatalities on both sides as well as damage to structures.

Dayan, responding to criticism from the UN observers about the use of mortars, replied:

"It was a mistake.  We should have used cannons."

In a conversation with the head of the Commission, Dayan said,

"I will return fire with everything except for an atom bomb and I will not restrict this only to the area from where fire is being shot."

Odd that we did not hear such talk from Israel during the Gaza operations when the whole issue of disprotortionality came up.

^