Hey Big Daddy,

 

All’s well here in J-town, although the most recent escalation has frayed some nerves. The Israeli government has authorized the calling up 40,000 miluimnikim, and I believe that 10,000 fathers, sons, husbands and brothers have actually received a ‘Draft 8’ notice, ordering them to report for duty.

Yet despite this shift to a war footing, Israel still has not cut off power and fuel to the terrorists occupying Gaza.

Gaza, simultaneously referred to as a ‘hamlet’, ‘enclave’ and of course ‘besieged,’ has, since the beginning of the Operation Protective Edge, hurled at least 200 rockets toward extensive areas in Israel. One rocket reached as far north as the town of Zichron Ya’akov, much farther than Israelis had previously estimated Hamas arsenal’s range to be.

It’s a logical impossibility: Israel, simultaneously providing this gang of thugs and psychopaths with their only lifeline while probably sending Israeli troops into harm’s way.

And please note: the vast majority of these flying bombs have been aimed at Israeli towns and homes INSIDE the mythical ‘Green Line’.

It won’t happen under Prime Minister Netanyahu, but one day an Israeli leader will be elected, during a crisis period no doubt and with an overwhelming mandate, who will base Israel’s defense posture not on fear of a possible UN condemnation, but on what is the quickest, most efficient and least costly way to keep Israel’s citizens safe.

Moreover, this leader will understand that war is but diplomacy by other means, at times necessary, even justified. Israel’s enemies, under this next generation leader, will begin to learn fear and not rely on the predictability of a proportional response. When this happens, their days will be numbered.

Joe Frazier, former undisputed heavyweight boxing champion, famously said, “the punch that knocks you out is the one you didn’t see coming.”

A Doctrine of Disproportional Response simply means that the killing of a single Israeli by terrorists wouldn’t be dealt with proportionally, but with utter destruction.

Why adopt such a seemingly radical approach? Because the Israeli government’s current response is a mind numbing repetition of all previous responses of all previous governments.

Israel continues to react to hell fire raining down upon its citizens in much the manner that an annoyed parent scolds an unruly child.

How will the US and the rest of the international community react to such a policy of zero tolerance? I suspect that the bloated, tired anti-Semites that comprise the US State Department, along with their ilk in Europe, will howl.

Let them howl. After every single Israeli military action, beginning in 1948, bankrupt colonial powers condemned the upstart Jewish State, and yet somehow those loud, hysterical voices inevitably faded into the ether.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Love, GBZ

 

Read other Times of Israel postings by Gidon Ben-Zvi here.