Violence should receive a proportionate response. This is the position of many politicians and media talking heads. If someone slaps you then you may slap them back but you may not strike them with a pair of brass knuckles nor even a closed fist.
I learned early in life about response to violence. I was set upon by a local bully and two of his henchmen. I came out of the fray with a black eye, a lip that would need eight stitches, some sore ribs and a lesson from my father about proportional response. Finding me on the back porch trying to wash the blood away and think up a good reason for the damage, my father took me back to the school playground where the incident occurred. The three were still there and my father announced that I would fight each of them one at a time. He cautioned me not to mark them about the face but to work the midsection and, if the chance came, to strike below the belt. I said that hitting below the belt wasn’t fair. He said, it’s a fight son, not a contest. You either win or you lose.
I fought the bully first. He was taller than I was so when he came at me with that arms thrown forward punching in a circle it was easy to step inside, block his arms upward and strike a upward right directly into his solar plexus. He dropped like a bad watermelon thrown off the fruit truck gasping for air and in between gasps claiming I had “killed” him. The other two took off running across the field. My father said they must have thought it was a race instead of a fight. He helped the bully to his feet and showed him his steadfast friends running for their lives. He whispered into the bully’s ear. He’s capable of much more than that and if you bother him again you’ll get to learn just how much.
My father then walked over to the big oak tree and took up a branch that had fallen. He slapped it into the palm of his hand looking at me and saying. You should have used this. Remember people who want you to fight fair aren’t doing the fighting. The object of a fight is to win, not to be fair. In winning you give your opponents a lesson about not doing that again as well as others who might observe.
He then took me to Doctor Davis’ office who stitched me up.
The point of this story is, stop telling the Israelis to act with restraint in their response to the Hamas atrocities. Those guilty of killing children and violating women deserve death and the Israelis should be able to bring that about.
Personally, I would prefer if the Israelis didn’t invade Gaza but got their intelligence services functioning as well as they did in the 60s and 70s. Find and remove the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and any Iranians who might show up along the way.
As for the Palestinian situation those of us who worked the Middle East beat for years know that the Palestinians are not allowed to make any treaties that would lead to peace. It isn’t the Israelis who oppress the Palestinian people but their own Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Where exactly has all the aid to the Palestinians gone? It certainly hasn’t gone to the people of Gaza. That Jordan (which already has a population that is majority Palestinian) and Egypt won’t accept refugees is only exacerbating the situation by forcing the Palestinians to remain in Gaza and perhaps become collateral damage in an Israeli invasion. This is the long game of the Arab Islamists. They do not want a two state solution. They want only the destruction of Israel and the purging of the Jews from the Holy Land. The son of the leader of Hamas said it himself not three days ago. The aim of the Arab states, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah is to create an Islamic Caliphate in the fertile crescent. They ran the Maronite Christians out of Lebanon and their aim is to do the same with the Jews in Israel. Do not allow yourself to fall under the sway of those who plead for the poor Palestinians. They are not poor because of the Israelis but because of those who use them as hostages in a 76 year old war.