Is there such a thing as a proportional response to savage attacks of innocents?

It didn’t take long for the predictable calls, by those who like to put everything on a level playing field, to caution us that a “proportional response” must be executed by Israel as it relates to any retaliatory measures we intend to take towards Hamas’ horrific attack of the past week on the Jewish state.

But let’s ask the most logical and sensible question, “Is there even such a thing as a proportional response when it comes to savage and barbaric attacks, that include raping women in front of their children and vice versa, decapitating infants in front of their mothers, wiping out entire families in their beds, now soaked with their blood, and systematically slaughtering young people at a nature event as they hunted them down like a sport?”

Whoever thinks so, has crossed over to a dark side that devalues humanity and considers brutal terrorists to be a legitimate opponent. Such an individual lacks the ability to distinguish evil from good, bloodthirstiness from civility and has lost the capacity to fairly analyze any other metric of societal norms.  

True proportional response takes into account exacting the same type of action initiated by the aggressors, and if that is truly considered a just and proper yardstick, then Israel’s reaction would consist of the very same behavior which was perpetrated on our own innocent citizens. However, no one here is naïve enough to think that the term, “proportional response,” to those throwing it out, means an equal and exact return of what was carried out by the savage members of Hamas.

Today’s intent of the phrase, “proportional response” has taken on a totally different meaning, when it concerns Israel. For people such as U.S. Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, (a.k.a. AOC), it means no killing of combatants, because to do so, by her way of thinking, would be tantamount to committing “ethnic genocide,” an ironic fact that she refuses to apply to the Hamas terrorists whose express goal is to rid the world of every Jew. 

For her ilk, the unspeakable indignities, that were committed by the other side, whose innocent lives were snuffed out in an early morning surprise attack on our Sabbath, is not commensurate with justly deserved retribution, albeit without the accompanying torture, violation and humiliation that was part of the terrorists’ morning recreational pleasure.

It’s because AOC and her fellow progressives, including all of the ignorant student protesters who are spouting off unsubstantiated nonsense, which they cannot defend, get to sleep well each night in their comfy beds, looking forward to a new day of exhilarating social activism which is, sadly, the only thing that seems to bring meaning and purpose to their empty lives.   

All those who are able to call for their version of “proportional response,” that is really code for: “Now Israel, play nice,” get to pompously posture and preach their gospel of what justice looks like from their end.  

You see, Jewish lineage is devalued and not worth the same considerations as Palestinian lineage, which has an automatic perk of “victimhood” as part of their DNA. Not so for Jews, who are viewed as the oppressors, occupiers and lords over a disenfranchised people whose land was stolen by them.

But for all who believe such claims, there is a glaring ignorance and denial of historical events as well as the factual chronicling of what took place throughout the centuries to the present day. Personal ignorance does not change what really took place.

Somehow, today’s pro-Palestinian defenders have missed the small detail of Jewish dispersion and wandering for 2,000 years, during which time we, as a people, were at the mercy of host countries who tolerated us until they viciously turned against us, offering the choice of forced conversion, exile or death.  

The Jewish people have endured the likes of the Inquisition, which burned them at the stake just for wanting to remain the way they were born, the Holocaust, a systematic final solution to rid the world of their ranks and, in between, many deadly pogroms, planned attacks and brutal massacres, all in the hope of eradicating us. That is the true legacy of our forefathers!

Yet, once the world finally recognized our prolonged and unjust suffering, they came to the collective majority decision that the Jews should be permitted to return to their ancient homeland after all of those centuries of oppression and hardship, albeit sharing the land with the estimated 950,000 Arabs who already inhabited the area in 1948.  

Working hard to build a decent homeland for themselves and their children, the Jews fought off invading armies time and time again, built hospitals, schools, homes and infrastructure of every type. They successfully turned a languishing desert into an enviable home, which became a showcase to the entire world for how self-determination and respect for ourselves, after so much personal degradation, could still be accomplished.

But now, that history has been replaced by a false and lying narrative that has re-casted us in the role of the towering Goliath to the cowering Palestinians, perennially portrayed as helpless and abused by their overseers, the ever-powerful Israelis.

Well, let’s get things straight! The abusive overseers are, indeed, inflicting severe pain, but they are not us. They are the savage Hamas terrorists who have cynically and purposely found a willing victim in the Palestinian people who have somehow believed, much to their detriment, that under their leadership, they would find justice and freedom as they stake their claim to the Utopia we built. Instead, they are not even willing to permit their people to leave Gaza in order to escape an inevitable war zone, because the more collateral civilian deaths, the more world condemnation will arise.

The big mistake is that the Israeli people, much to their own detriment, have, for too long, lived with an untenable situation, where corrupt and barbaric leaders have fomented hate, culminating into what we have experienced – a full-scale savage attack upon innocent Jewish citizens whose sin is merely trying to live in the land that not only God bequeathed to them, but that world powers, likewise, agreed to approve.

But now, we are supposed to overlook the atrocities, the likes of which haven’t been committed since the Holocaust and show mercy and restraint upon the same terrorists who came here with the intent to finish the job that Hitler couldn’t. Does that sound like a reasonable request to any sane individual?

It’s unfortunate that, all too often, reality gets in the way of a preferred one-sided narrative where it’s easier to paint both sides as equal, but that would demand the willingness of our side to take on guilt for the unjustified horrors that have been perpetrated upon us over the last eight days. So, while some may call for their understanding of a proportional response over the next few days, weeks and, likely, months to come, they shouldn’t count on it happening.  

Jews don’t have a death wish, nor are we willing to appease the world’s nations who, to begin with, never liked us all that much. If they were honest and sincere, they would never be willing to live with the constant threat of annihilation, so why should we?