What is the Proportional Response?
As Israel wages war in Gaza, how far is too far when trying to kill "a venomous snake"?
Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
I am having trouble with the phrase “proportional response.”
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel and the kidnapping of some 240 more, Israel launched a search-and-destroy mission against Hamas and its largely subterranean infrastructure in Gaza.
Israel would like to end, once and for all, the threat posed by Hamas, the acts of terrorism (such as the suicide bombers of years past) and rocket fire, which has continued even as Israel followed air strikes on Gaza with a ground offensive.
Israel’s military has leveled large swaths of the Gaza strip, displaced an estimated 1.5 million residents, and killed upwards of 10,000 Palestinians (estimates by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry include fighters and civilians) — while also searching a labyrinth of tunnels, finding weapons caches in places where one normally would not expect to find such armament, and recovering the bodies of slain kidnap victims.
[Note: This is being written as reports emerge of a possible multi-day ceasefire and the exchange of Palestinians jailed by Israel for an unspecified number of hostages, reportedly some of the kidnapped women and children.]
Much the world has reacted with outrage to the images streaming out of Gaza. Israel has been less willing to display photographs and videos of the atrocities committed by Hamas. The footage released thus far has been screened only by invitation and, in all probability, would not sway those predisposed to dismiss or excuse even evidence recorded that day by the terrorists.
Which brings me to that phrase “proportional response.”
What is the proportional response when children are knifed and shot multiple times in their beds?
What is the proportional response when children and adults are bound together by wire, their bodies burned so badly that what remains is not recognizable as human?
What is the proportional response when bodies are missing limbs and, yes, heads (of children and adults) and otherwise mutilated in ways that could not be dreamed up for a horror film?
What is the proportional response to rape that results in broken pelvises?
Those disinclined to believe should listen to the ZAKA volunteers who recovered the bodies and body parts, the forensic pathologists performing autopsies, and the anthropologists brought in to help identify the victims.
A curator of an art gallery at Kibbutz Be’eri, which, like numerous homes, was reduced to cinders — as more than 100 of Be’eri’s 1,100 residents were murdered and two dozen or more people kidnapped — told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “We’re talking about a new paradigm now: It’s either us or them. You can’t live next door to a venomous snake that’s always trying to bite you.”
How far is too far as Israel tries to kill the snake?
No reasonable person should take pleasure or feel justified by the knowledge that Palestinian civilians, particularly children, are being killed as Israel wages war, no matter the degree of rage over the barbarity displayed on the day that Israelis now call “Black Saturday.”
After Oct. 7, the timeline for achieving peace (however you define it) may now extend past the generation of the youngest Israelis and Palestinians old enough to remember the slaughter and the retaliation.
The cruel irony is that among those murdered that day, including at Be’eri, were campaigners for co-existence, some having devoted years to this ideal — none of which mattered to their killers, who smiled, laughed, cheered, and boasted for the cameras they carried.
I remain struck by something said by some of the families of those murdered and kidnapped on Oct. 7, including a delegation that visited Atlanta: Do not seek vengeance in the name of our grief.
The cruel irony is that among those murdered that day, including at Be’eri, were campaigners for co-existence, some having devoted years to this ideal — none of which mattered to their killers, who smiled, laughed, cheered, and boasted for the cameras they carried.
Among those murdered at Be’eri were Eviatar and Lilach Kipnis. In Atlanta, a young cousin of the couple told a nearly full sanctuary at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue: “Her sons asked us not to revenge on behalf of their name. In the darkest times, the darkest parts of our personalities sometimes get out. Our family sent a message of peace. I feel like I need to ask you, on behalf of Lilach and Tari, don’t seek revenge.”
It took courage to say this in front of an audience of Jewish Americans and local Israelis, many of whom had attended a rally three weeks earlier where the crowd cheered a speaker who declared that “Israel is going to do what Israel is going to do.”
Returning to where I began, what is the “proportional response”? How far is too far? Are we past the point where either question is relevant? How else do you kill the snake?
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