Did Israel Use "Disproportionate Force" in Gaza?

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs ^ | December 28, 2008 | Dore Gold

[mtk1980]

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetrate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.

[arthurus]

ĩ

[Army MP Retired]

Disproportionate Force... what a preposterous term. I remember in the final days before leaving for Iraq, my Soldiers were in a use of force briefing prepared by lawyers and being faithfully regurgitated by a young LT. This disproportionate force B.S. was delivered to them and as an example of it’s relevance they were told if they were being shot at with small arms by a single enemy, the appropriate response would be to engage that enemy only with small arms fire until it was suppressed or neutralized. After this sensitizing, cultural awareness and international law nonsense was over - I held them in place and told them; if someone means to do you or your buddy harm - you bring to bear all the firepower at your disposal with extreme violence, shock and destruction. Break the enemy of it’s will to fight as quickly and permanently as possible. Following the initial occupation, my unit spent 15 months in Baghdad and lost not a single Soldier to enemy action.

[gakrak]

Ah let me guess,we would make Mexico a permanent glass factory. Just a guess. Amen.

[Popman]

Its a mistake to think you can adjudicate war. If war can be managed by attorneys with brief cases, with suits and ties, serving subpoenas and fashioning brilliant arguments before judges behind mahogany benches, you are not yet at war.War is by its very nature an extra-legal enterprise, it is the state of affairs that exists when lawyers and policemen and judges are no longer able to manage a confrontation. At that point, the men in suits take a recess, and the men with guns go in to kill the men who couldn’t be reasoned with, them and anyone standing near them, you wipe out their leadership and everything of value that can be used to keep them alive, you wipe out whole towns if necessary, whole armies, and when you have completely re-drawn the map and created a new status quo to replace the old toxic one, only then do you let the men in suits with the briefcases resume control.War is the parenthesis that occupies the space between the failure of the old status quo and the birth of the new one. When rule-of-law resumes, when a new circumstance has emerged that permits the resumption of rule-of-law, the war is over

Borrowed from a Freeper

[Texas Fossil]

And think about what we just elected to the office of President of the U.S.

Is that insane? YES

[freepersup]

America responded proportionately, time and time again to the attacks on our people and our way of life, wrought by the religion of peace, from about the time just past the Munich Olympics until September 10th, 2001. For the policy of measured, restrained and proportional responses, America suffered (on it's own soil) it's greatest wound since World War II, of which occurred on September 11th, 2001. So much for proportional responses...

[Sicon]

Are there any Hamas scum still alive? Yes? Then the force was not disproportionate, it was insufficient.

[SoFloFreeper]

YES! The response was disproportionate! It was NOT STRONG ENOUGH!

[tessalu]

Israel has never used the force against the Palestinians that they have deserved, and they have only become emboldened.

[tessalu]

The joke is that if you use a lesser force against the enemy, you can not win.