This is a loser war mentality. You don’t just respond to attacks you take the initiative.
Can you just imagine WWII Stalingrad, Stalin is on the phone with his general on the ground.
-Comrade Stalin, today the Germans fired ten shells at our side!
-OK general, we will respond by firing ten shells at their side, that will show them!
-Brilliant move comrade Stalin! Do we continue feeding the German invaders and giving them gas, water, and electricity?
-Yes general, wouldn’t want to get any angry letters from UN or a negative editorial from The Guardian. Besides, the poor fellas are hungry, if we don’t feed them who will?
Here is an idea to stop the rocket fire; create a hostage pool of captured terrorists. Publish their names and execute one every time a rocket is fired. Bury them in pig skins so they can’t go to heaven. Bet you the rockets would stop pretty fast.
> Here is an idea to stop the rocket fire; create a hostage pool of captured terrorists. Publish their names and execute one every time a rocket is fired. Bury them in pig skins so they can’t go to heaven. Bet you the rockets would stop pretty fast.
The Germans used to be heavily into reprisals such as this during the Second World War. As a tactic it didn’t really work too well: all that it tended to do was make the partizans angrier and more bloodthirsty.
IMO the only way to fight and win a war is to defeat your enemy decisively, so that they wouldn’t dream of ever attacking you again. That hasn’t really been done ever since WW-II. It needs to be done again.
I understand the sentiment behind what you say, but there is also something to be said for keeping the ‘war’ at nibbling pace as opposed to giving excuse for every country surrounding them to wipe out Isreal. They could handle Gaza, but could they handle Lebanon, Iran, Syra, etc... all at the same time?
Generally speaking, I think it makes more sense to make your enemy respond to your maneuvers rather than to find yourself constantly responding to his maneuvers. If you find yourself responding to his attacks the principles of battle probably aren’t in your favor i.e surprise, initiative, offensive, mass and synchronicity of force, maneuver, objective, etc. That being the case, perhaps rushing off into a major war in response to a few missiles that impacted without significant effect isn’t the wisest approach here.