“Proportionality” in response to terror - antisemitism by another name

“Proportionality” in response to terror - antisemitism by another name

Matthew M. Hausman

So, Israel was attacked by Hamas on Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the last day of the high holiday season, in a devastating assault against civilians – and some immediately called for Israel’s response to be “proportionate.”

As Israel defended herself and prepared for a likely incursion into Gaza against terrorists who brutally murdered some 1,400 Israeli civilians and kidnapped perhaps hundreds more, an Irish government minister was among the first to urge Israel to proportionalize her response. And in the US, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the radical, anti-Israel Democratic “Squad,” initially took the opportunity to blame Israeli apartheid (though Israel is most definitely not an apartheid state) instead of condemning Hamas terrorism against civilians, while some of her cohorts issued an equivocal denunciation of the attack and simultaneously demanded an immediate ceasefire to prevent Israel from retaliating.

What utter nonsense. Israel has every right to retaliate, and the only correct response would be the annihilation of Hamas, whose charter calls for jihad against Israel and genocide against the Jews.

Indeed, Article 7 of the Hamas Charter specifically states:

“Hamas is one of the links in the Chain of Jihad in the confrontation with the Zionist invasion. It links up with the setting out of the Martyr Izz a-din al-Qassam and his brothers in the Muslim Brotherhood who fought the Holy War in 1936; it further relates to another link of the Palestinian Jihad and the Jihad and efforts of the Muslim Brothers during the 1948 War, and to the Jihad operations of the Muslim Brothers in 1968 and thereafter.

“But even if the links have become distant from each other, and even if the obstacles erected by those who revolve in the Zionist orbit, aiming at obstructing the road before the Jihad fighters, have rendered the pursuance of Jihad impossible; nevertheless, the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah's promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).’”

Why should Israel be hamstrung by demands for her to limit her response against an enemy whose charter calls for exterminating Jews as brazenly as Hitler’s Mein Kampf? What else besides total destruction constitutes an appropriate answer to terrorists who slaughter innocents in their beds, burn people alive, and decapitate children?

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