I can’t stop shaking my head about yesterday’s front-page Times piece by Steven Erlanger about complaints from France and the EU, “echoed by some nongovernmental organizations” — and echoed, now, by The Times — against the “disproportionate use of force” in the Hezbollah/Israel war.
Of course, there is disproporationate use of force. Hezbollah attacked. Israel attacked back. It’s a war. Israel is going to try to win. In fact, Israel is going to try to destroy Hezbollah.
The alternative — the proportionate use of force — reminds me of an old Star Trek episode, I believe, in which two nations on a planet came to an agreement for civilized use of force. Rather than bothering with the bombs and guns, a certain number of people from each side had to turn themselves in to be killed. This argument isn’t hard to lampoon. But Erlanger doesn’t try. Only toward the end does he finally include this:
Referring to complaints that Israel was using disproportionate force, Dan Gillerman, Israel’s United Nations ambassador, said at a rally of supporters in New York this week, “You’re damn right we are.”
: And speaking of ridiculous ways to speak about this war, Eat the Press is right to pat Jon Stewart for ridiculing the networks about not calling this war — almost on the brink, on the brink… — and then for saying that we feel this war only “at the pump.”
