What could go wrong? Hezbullah has more rockets than all 27 NATO countries... combined
A report in the
Weekly Standard indicates that the Hezbullah terror organization has more than 130,000 rockets in southern Lebanon - a number that exceeds the rockets held by
all 27 NATO countries... combined.
Hezbollah currently has a stockpile of over 130,000 rockets, more
than the combined arsenal of all NATO countries, with the exception of
the United States. This number includes long-range rockets and M-600
ballistic missiles, which carry a high payload and would be able to
“wipe out a good chunk of Times Square and maim and kill people four
football fields away from the point of impact,” Stern noted. Hezbollah
also has approximately 100,000 short-range rockets trained on schools,
homes, and hospitals in northern Israel, which could potentially kill
hundreds of civilians.
“You don’t collect 130,000 missiles if you don’t intend to use them,”
said Matthew Levitt, an expert on counter-terrorism and intelligence at
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Hezbollah’s positioning of this weaponry in civilian areas poses a
challenge to Israeli officers, added Geoff Corn, an international
military law expert at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. “After
exhausting all feasible efforts to reduce civilian risk, IDF commanders
must resolve the decisive question: Is the potential for civilian harm
excessive in comparison to the advantages the attack would provide? When
you talk of an M-600 in the hands of an enemy that targets vital
military assets or the civilian population—even if that apartment
building is full—launching the attack will be necessary to mitigate the
threat,” he explained.
That seems like a no-brainer. When it's our civilians or their civilians, it's pretty clear to this Israeli that the IDF must act to defend Israel's civilians, and damn the rest of the world for facilitating their doing this.
Israeli military officials in May 2015 told the New York Times
how Hezbollah has “moved most of its military infrastructure” in and
around Shiite villages, which “amounts to using the civilians as a human
shield.” A senior military official stated that Lebanese civilians are
“living in a military compound.” He told the Times: “We will
hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian
casualties as much as we can…We do not intend to stand by helplessly in
the face of rocket attacks.” Stern, who was shown maps of the locations
of Hezbollah weapons, said that they are not only being stored in these
southern villages, but in Beirut itself.
Yaakov Amidror, Israel’s former national security advisor, met
with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the summer of 2013 and showed
him “detailed evidence of Hezbollah’s deadly arsenal and the fact that
it was strategically placed within densely populated civilian centers.”
When Amidror asked Ban what the Israelis should do, he “offered no
response and no suggestions.” Stern concluded his piece, “Nobody, it
seems, in times of peace is willing to offer Israel a constructive
suggestion on how to deal with an Iranian-backed terrorist organization
in possession of a massive arsenal on its northern border. But these
same organizations stand front and center to criticize Israel for acting
legally and proportionately for protecting its own citizens in
wartime.”
As I pointed out on this blog ten years ago, Israel under the Geneva Convention,
Israel has every right to defend itself.
Article 28 of the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 is simple and clear. It
says: " The presence of a protected person may not be used to render
certain points or areas immune from military operations." Hezbullah
violates this provision daily. It is due to Hezbullah's violations of
this provision that Lebanese civilians are being killed.
In an
article published on the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com web
page over the weekend, Orde F. Kittrie, a professor of international law
at Arizona State University and who served in the Office of the Legal
Adviser at the U.S. State Department from 1993 to 2003, summarized the three-part test in determining whether Israeli actions violate the Geneva Convention:
International
law has three major prohibitions .... One forbids deliberate attacks on
civilians. Another prohibits hiding forces in civilian areas, thereby
turning civilians into "human shields." A third prohibition, the
proportionality restriction that Israel is accused of violating,
involves a complicated and controversial balancing test.
Ignoring
the fact that Israel has warned Lebanese citizens to flee the combat
zones dozens of times, given the manner in which Hezbullah has hidden
both itself and its weapons among civilians, it is impossible to assert,
let alone prove, that Israel is deliberately attacking civilians. But
it is clear that Hezbullah has turned what remains of Lebanon's civilian
population into human shields.
...
I have already noted that Orde Kittrie wrote that the proportionality
test "involves a complicated and controversial balancing test." Kittrie
goes on to explain:
Geneva Convention Protocol I contains
one version of the proportionality test, the International Criminal
Court Statute another; neither is universally accepted. As a result, the
proportionality test is governed by "customary international law," an
amalgam of non-universal treaty law, court decisions, and how
influential nations actually behave. It does not hinge on the relative
number of casualties, or the force used, however, but on the intent of
the combatant. Under customary international law, proportionality
prohibits attacks expected to cause incidental death or injury to
civilians if this harm would, on balance, be excessive in relation to
the overall legitimate military accomplishment anticipated.
...
If Israel was mistaken and Hezbollah was not firing from or hiding amongst these civilians, the legality of its action is assessed by the proportionality test. [But we know from countless testimonies that Israel is not mistaken and that Hezbullah is firing from among civilians.
CiJ] Because the test is vague, there have been few, if any, cases
since World War II in which a soldier, commander or country has been
convicted of violating it. In the absence of guidance from the courts,
determining whether Israel's military has failed the proportionality
test depends on an assessment of what civilian casualties it expected,
what its overall military goals are, the context in which the country is
operating, and how the international community has in practice balanced
civilian risk against military goals. [There
is no way to attack a munitions depot hidden beneath a house and a
school without blowing up the house and the school. That would make any
attack in which the civilians have been warned to leave the house and
the school proportional per se. CiJ]
Israel did not expect civilian casualties; it warned civilians to leave Qana [and all areas south of the Litani at this point. CiJ]... The
law of war recognizes that mistakes are inevitable, and does not
criminalize soldiers who seek in good faith seek to avoid them.
Read the whole thing (it describes similar tactics adopted by Hezbullah on a lesser scale during the Second Lebanon War ten years ago).
Labels: disproportionate response, Geneva Convention, Hezbullah, human shields, Lebanon, M-600 missiles
Ain't this the truth?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Tell me this one isn't the truth.
Indeed.
Labels: disproportionate response, double standards, Islamic State, Jordan
AP forgets what its own reporter reported, Carter Center introduces new legal standard
The Associated Press reports that 'evidence is growing' that
Hamas used residential neighborhoods to fire rockets.
Two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, there is growing evidence that
Hamas militants used residential areas as cover for launching rockets at
Israel, at least at times. Even Hamas now admits “mistakes” were made.
Mistakes? Actually, Hamas has another excuse.
But Hamas says it had little choice in Gaza’s crowded urban
landscape, took safeguards to keep people away from the fighting, and
that a heavy-handed Israeli response is to blame for the deaths of
hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
“Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in
the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that
Israel has turned into a war zone,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas
official in Gaza.
That's a load of nonsense. Here's an example. I'm embedding a satellite map of Gaza City below. You will note that various neighborhoods are outlined - some of the names will be familiar. Now notice all that open farmland on the right side on the bottom two thirds of the map. Couldn't Hamas have used that space if it really wanted to avoid harming civilians?
Then the AP forgets what it reported itself:
During 50 days of fighting, many observers witnessed rocket launches
from what appeared to be urban areas. One piece of video footage
distributed by the AP, for instance, captured a launch in downtown Gaza
City that took place in a lot next to a mosque and an office of the
Hamas prime minister. Both buildings were badly damaged in subsequent
Israeli airstrikes.
Here's AP reporter Joseph Federman on July 9.
Let's go to the videotape. In this video, watch the question and answer sequence between 1:14 and 2:01.
Note how Federman says that two rockets were launched right outside the AP's Gaza City office!
Then there's the Carter Center's effort to set a new legal standard.
“Yes, Hamas and others may have used civilians as human shields, but was
that consistent and widespread?” said Sami Abdel-Shafi, a
Palestinian-American who represents the Carter Center in Gaza. “The
question is whether Israel’s response was proportionate.”
Umm, no. Those are two independent questions. If Israel's response was disproportionate, that
might be a war crime. Or it might not be a war crime. Recall
this and
this.
But if Hamas used civilians as human shields, that's a war crime regardless of whether it was consistent or widespread. And each time they did was a war crime. Targeting civilians, which is what the 'Palestinians' did on a consistent and widespread basis, is a war crime each time it's done. Imagine what our death toll would have been - God Forbid - if we didn't have Iron Dome.
Finally, here is an IDF video showing 12 examples of rocket launches from civilian areas and Gaza.
Let's go to the videotape.
Notice how most of those rockets were shot from the middle - not even the edges - of civilian areas, and they were shot at our civilians. What was the IDF to do? Do you think we should have stood our ground and not responded? Would your government have responded?
PS This article doesn't even discuss the terror tunnels, all of which used civilian structures.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: asymmetric warfare, civilian casualties, disproportionate response, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas rockets, human shields
What would you do if it were your country?
Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold answers critics who claim that Israel's handling of Shejaiya was '
disproportionate.' If your country were confronted like this, what do you think it would do? (Hint: Think NATO in Yugoslavia in 1999 - not pretty).
Finally, there was the decision that Israel ultimately made: Separate,
as much as possible, the civilian population from the Hamas fighters and
arms in their midst. This required getting the Palestinian population
to evacuate potential target areas by multiple means: dropping leaflets
with evacuation routes, breaking into Hamas radio broadcasts with
warnings about specific areas, Arabic-language telephone calls to homes
and text messages to cellphones. While the notification process was
underway, an Israeli drone would hover over the area that was to be
cleared to ensure that residents had left.
Against this Israeli effort, Hamas employed a counter-strategy of
trying to prevent civilians from heeding Israeli warnings. On July 8,
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri appeared on local television and called
on Gazans to serve as human shields against Israeli air attacks. Hamas
enforcers sought to dissuade civilians from fleeing. And, anticipating a
ground incursion into neighborhoods like Shajaiya, Hamas booby-trapped
whole rows of homes, hoping to collapse them on Israeli soldiers. This
only magnified the scale of the destruction.
It should be recalled
that proportionality in international law has a very specific meaning:
It is the calculation a military commander must make as to whether the
military advantage to be gained by the use of force is greater than the
probable harm that may be inflicted on the surrounding civilian
population. Anyone who complains about “disproportionality” must explain
exactly what the IDF should have done to neutralize the terrorist
threat from Shajaiya while causing less destruction than what occurred.
War
between an embattled democracy, like Israel, and a terrorist
organization, like Hamas, inevitably produces certain asymmetries.
Israel heavily invested in the defense of its population, including air
raid shelters as well as a missile defense system, known as Iron Dome.
Where did Hamas put the billions of dollars it obtained from supporters
like Qatar? It built the system of attack tunnels and an arsenal of
missiles. Yet there are those who wrongly infer Israeli intent to cause
civilian casualties from the greater damage suffered by Hamas, which
resulted from a war Hamas imposed, and from its readiness to sacrifice
the lives of its people to advance its extremist goals.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: civilian casualties, disproportionate response, Dore Gold, Gaza, Hamas, human shields, IDF, Operation Protective Edge, Shejaiya
Putting Israel's self-defense into context
Someone sent me the following quote - allegedly from US News.com - but I could not find it there:
Dresden, Berlin, 21000 German civilians killed in retaliation for failed
V2 missile attempts on London, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Sarajevo
recently, all were unfortunate but none were disproportionate. As both
Churchill and Truman remarked, they saved their soldiers lives, and they
slept like babies without any regret. The most significnant harm being
done to the citizens of Gaza is western media telling them that Gaza is
some sort of exception to western rules of law, and if one shoots 3000
missiles at a major nation state they will not retaliate with force
designed to end the threat. They are good people, as were the German and
Japanese citizens, and deserve to know this sort of military response
will rain down upon them if they continue to "look the other way" while
150 miles of military tunnels are excavated under their homes. Only 4%
of Germans were members of the Nazi party, less than 10% of Germany was
left standing in 1945. (usnews.com)
It's a good quote - I wish I knew who wrote it. But while I was searching for it, I found
this piece by Louis Rene Beres which is simply excellent.
From the standpoint of pertinent international law, these criticisms
are sorely mistaken. The legal standard of proportionality in the law of
armed conflict has nothing to do with equal levels of suffering. If it
did, virtually all major allied military operations during World War II
would have been flagrantly "disproportionate."
Properly legal determinations of proportionality can never be made in
an historical or geopolitical vacuum. Instead, they must always take
into account the decipherable extent to which an adversary (especially a
terrorist adversary, whose every action is illegal by definition) has
committed prior or ongoing violations of the law of war.
In the case of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and also “moderate” Fatah, there
is incontestable evidence that these terrorists are systematically
guilty of perfidy, a specific and egregious violation of the law of war
involving, in this particular case, deceptions that knowingly endanger
noncombatant populations. Once again, with very little objection from
the "international community," Palestinian "freedom fighters" have been
firing intentionally at vulnerable Israeli civilians from Gaza schools
and hospitals. As for heroic
Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, he prefers conspicuous safety in Qatar, to
becoming a
shahid, or martyr. Palestinian martyrdom is reserved by Hamas for Gaza's
endlessly manipulated and impoverished masses, those who are most
plainly unable to migrate to the more pleasingly wealthy Arab oil
states.
Deception can be acceptable in armed conflict, but portions of the law
of war, specifically the Hague Conventions, still disallow placement of
civilians among military assets or personnel. Further prohibition of
perfidy can be found in the protocols added to the Geneva Conventions in
1977. These incontrovertible rules are also binding on the basis of
customary international law, which is included in the
authoritative inventory of legal sources defined at Article 38 of the
Statute of the International Court of Justice.
Perfidy is identified as a “grave breach” of the law of war at Article
147 of Geneva Convention No. IV. The effect of perfidy committed by all
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza – especially their widespread resort to
human shields – is to immunize Israel from legal responsibility for any
counter-terrorist harms done to Arab civilians. Even if Hamas and
Islamic Jihad and Fatah did not deliberately engage in perfidy, any
terrorist-created link between civilians and insurgent warfare would
still grant Israel full justification for defensive military actions.
Israel should not be granted a free hand in its applications of armed
force any more than any state should. But the reasonableness of these
particular applications should always be evaluated against the specific
background of unreconstructed Palestinian perfidy.
Viewed against the landscape of extensive and unapologetic terrorist
crimes in Gaza, Israel is not guilty of “disproportionality.”
Read the whole thing.
Labels: disproportionate response, Gaza, Hamas, IDF
What's a disproportionate response?
Heh (Hat Tip:
Debbie R).
Labels: disproportionate response, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Operation Protective Edge
Must see video: Naftali Bennett PWN's Sky News reporter
This is great. Some pompous a** on Sky News interviews Naftali Bennett and asks about 'proportionality' and Bennett rips him some new body parts.
Let's go to the videotape.
We should let him speak for the government instead of Tzipi Livni.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, British media bias, civilian casualties, disproportionate response, Gaza, Hamas, human shields, Naftali Bennett, Operation Protective Edge, Tzipi Livni
Why Netanyahu has not ordered a ground invasion
Prime Minister Netanyahu has not ordered a ground invasion due to international pressure and due to the fact that he understands that he would be sending at least some IDF soldiers to their deaths. We all understand that. But there's more to it than that. Elliott Abrams writes that Netanyahu has not ordered a ground invasion because of the
warped moral calculation it would cause with respect to casualty numbers.
For one thing, Netanyahu knows he would be sending some Israeli
soldiers to their deaths. But he also knows that in the sick math of the
Gaza war, Israel would be blamed for “disproportionate” killing.
What that means is simple: too many Palestinians would die, and “not
enough” Israelis–in the view of much of “world opinion.” You would read
that calculation in the New York Times and see it on the BBC.
In “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008, about 1000-1400 Palestinians died, and
13 Israelis. In “Operation Pillar of Defense” in 2012 it was something
like 150 to 6. As of now, in the current conflict there are no Israeli
deaths and about 100 Palestinian deaths. Here’s how Time Magazine started its story:
The death toll among Palestinians scrambling under a relentless Israeli air assault in the Gaza Strip passed 80 Thursday and edged close to 100 Friday,
including at least 14 children….Meanwhile, the barrage of rockets Gaza
militants launched toward Israeli cities failed to produce a significant
casualty on the third day of Israel’s offensive Thursday….The Israeli
military said it destroyed more buildings in the first 36 hours of the
current campaign than in all of Pillar of Defense. More people are dying
too: the 80 fatalities reported so far is, once again, more than half
the reported death toll from the longer bombing two years earlier.
Time then discussed exactly this phenomenon: when what
“world opinion” sees as “too many” Palestinians dying and the balance is
“too great” in Israel’s favor–that is, too many Palestinians and not
enough Israelis being killed–the calls for a cease-fire will escalate.
Moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas will be the order of the
day–except for those who elevate Hamas, since after all it is killing
fewer people!
...
Remember this: in the Second World War, the United States suffered
416,000 combat deaths, or about 0.32 percent of the population. Germany
suffered 4-5 million combat deaths, or about 5 percent of the
population. The death ratio was 10 to 1. Did that make the war unjust?
Does that mean the United States inflicted “disproportionate” numbers of
casualties? Unfortunately the Israelis know “world opinion” will never
be on their side in these arguments. Let’s just hope the United States
is.
UPDATE: UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has already proved this analysis right, even before an Israeli ground incursion. She said this today:
For its part, the Government of Israel must take all
possible measures to ensure full respect for the principles of
distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, during the
conduct of hostilities, as required by international humanitarian law.
In all circumstances, they must avoid targeting civilians. However, we
have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian
casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on
homes. Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli
strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and
international human rights law.
So, she is already accusing Israel of breaking international
humanitarian law and human rights law. Perhaps since Goldstone has
retired, she is filling in.
You have to wonder what the outcome of World War II would have been had the World been as 'moral' as it is today.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, disproportionate response, Elliott Abrams, Gaza, Goldstone Report, Hamas, moral high ground, Navi Pillay, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Protective Edge
Oh my... Turkish columnist in al-Arabiya blasts Hamas and its Muslim supporters
Yes,
this one definitely deserves a flying pig. The lady's name is Ceylan Ozbudak and I sure hope she's safe tonight. Or can I assume from the fact that the page has 1,250 views and NO comments, that everyone agrees to her even if they're ashamed to admit it (Hat Tip:
Joe L).
But how realistic is it to expect ‘proportionate force’ from a nation,
which finds itself under direct attack? As a Muslim, I would like to see
Israel settling this matter at the diplomatic table rather than using
force to suppress Hamas. But to be frank, Muslims have killed far higher
numbers of fellow Muslims in the post-WWII era than the non-Muslims
ever have.
We do not want to see the IDF harming the families living in the Gaza
Strip, but Assad's forces and extremist elements in Syria have also
killed many Palestinians in the Yarmouk refugee camp and neither
situation is acceptable. Palestinians in Lebanon have gone through
various persecutions before, during and after the Lebanese Civil War and
after six decades of existence in the country, they still aren’t
granted citizenship. ISIS (now calls itself the 'Islamic State', or IS)
even ‘proudly’ documented how they loaded thousands of Shiite soldiers
onto trucks and executed them. Iraq suffered under the U.S. invasion and
for a couple of decades before that under the U.S.-led embargo, but the
conflicts between Muslims started well before any American troops put
their boots on the ground and those conflicts accelerated faster than
ever after they have left. Also, the Egyptian military coup led by
General Sisi cost thousands of Muslim lives; al-Qaeda has been
butchering those who dare to oppose them for years; Nigerian schoolgirls
were kidnapped en masse by the extremist group, Boko Haram. All of
these events combined have not created as much anger as the Israeli air
strikes.
If we are Muslims, and if the reason for our outrage is
stemming from religious togetherness, how then do we explain the silence
against the relentless tide of mass murder going on in the region? If
we are all fellow Muslims, according to which source are we supposed to
manage our lives and decide who is wrong and who is right? The right
answers to these questions are neither politics nor history; the answer
is to become true Muslims and follow the religion, which states quite
clearly that attacks during a time of peace, without a direct threat to
one’s life are unlawful.
...
If we desire our Palestinian brothers to get justice, the way to do
this is not by showing innocent people on the other side as legitimate
targets. Such attacks during a state of truce will invite reprisals
anywhere in the world. Civilians in Israel are living in fear in
shelters due to rockets being fired from Gaza. It is true that the
number of casualties is not even close between the Arab and Israeli
sides, but the idea that any war would ever inflict equal casualties on
both sides is in any event unrealistic, there is almost always a
predator and a prey.
There has been blind conflict between the
two sides for many years now. These two peoples who should be living
side by side in peace in those ancient, beautiful lands, are instead
fighting one another and engaging in a vicious circle of tit-for-tat.
Countries cannot choose their neighbors; however, they can choose the
sort of relations they will have with their neighbors. The Arab world
has been vehemently opposed to Israel for the last six decades, yet this
still doesn’t change the fact that Israel is a Middle Eastern neighbor
and as much as many would like to see Israel somehow disappear, that is
simply not going to happen.
Read the whole thing. My problem is that given the constant citing of the
Hudaybiyya treaty, I have to wonder if she's correct about what Islam really says about truces.
Labels: cease fire, disproportionate response, Gaza, Hamas rockets, Islam, Operation Protective Edge, Religion of Peace
Why a disproportionate response?
As longtime readers know, I have long been an advocate of a
disproportionate response to terror attacks and asymmetric warfare. I believe that it's the only kind of response that will have any deterrent effect.
Unlike the current administration in the US - and indeed much of the Israeli government - I believe that the general population in both countries gets it. Perhaps this video from 2012 from the popular US television series West Wing is indicative.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip:
Mrs. Carl).
Still waiting for Israel's disproportionate response to the kidnapping and murder of three innocent teenagers.
Labels: asymmetric warfare, disproportionate response, kidnapping, murder, Palestinian terrorism
'Cease fires' are not the answer
Wow has
Yoram Ettinger got this one right.
Any response to terrorism that falls short of devastating the ideological, political, financial, logistic and operational terrorist infrastructures only serves to reassure terrorists that they are immune to annihilation. Moreover, it nurtures their hope-driven terrorism. They hope to destroy Israel’s defiance, wreck Israel’s steadfastness, and sustain the momentum of sweeping Israeli ideological and territorial retreats between the years 1993-2011.
Furthermore, a limited response to terrorism exacerbates wars of attrition – the terrorists' dream and the nightmare of democratic societies. The limited-retaliation response to terrorism adds fuel to the fire of terrorism, feeding the self-defeating assumption that there is no military solution to terrorism, thus eroding Israel’s deterrence.
Contrary to that self-defeating assumption, Palestinian terrorism was curtailed by 90 percent when, in 2002, Israel's military took over the Palestinian breeding grounds of terrorism in Beit Jallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and other major towns in Judea and Samaria. Israeli military re-engagement with these areas – rather than the security fence or wall – reasserted Israel's steadfastness in the battle against Palestinian terrorism.
The more defensive and retaliation-driven the Israeli response to terrorism, the more emboldened Palestinian terrorists become, and the less confidence Israelis have in their government’s ability to safeguard personal and national security. As a result, the country's mental fatigue becomes more taxing, and Israelis become less convinced of their cause.
The addiction to a defensive posture and limited response has been embraced by Israel since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accord, in an effort to resuscitate the “peace” process, which has triggered far more hate-education, terrorism and non-compliance than the pre-Oslo reality. Two-hundred and fifty Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorism in the 15 years prior to Oslo, but over 2,000 have been murdered in the 18 years since.
Limited response has also been implemented in order to soothe international public opinion - which is never satisfied with Israeli concessions - thus recklessly subordinating national security to public diplomacy considerations. Sometimes it yields a false sense of security and enhances short-term tactical popularity. However, limited response always undermines long-term strategic interests and international respect towards Israel, unleashing more pressure on Israel, radicalizing Palestinian terrorism and distancing the region from peace.
Indeed.
Labels: disproportionate response, Palestinian terrorism, Yoram Ettinger
