Who determines that which among any two warring parties has the prerogative to first strike and use force of whatever kind against the other. Isn't the one who first uses force (of any kind) against the other already guilty of using disproportionate force. Or is he not?
And on what grounds can anyone offer advise to the affected party to retaliate only with a force similar and proportionate to the one it was inflicted with. Isn't that plain bankruptcy of reasoning and biased judgment?
I came across an article "Defending A people" by Alan M. Dershowitz that appeared in the editorial page of Hindustan Times, August 4, 2006. Alan Dershowitz is a Professor of Law at Harvard and the author of Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways. I am putting some excerpts that I find quiet insightful from his article.
The Hezbollah and Hamas’ provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in their attacks on democracies. By hiding behind their own civilians, the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians (emphasis mine). This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option, and the terrorists with a win-win option.
...the international community, the media and the so-called ‘human rights’ organizations (emphasis mine) could stop falling for this terrorist gambit and acknowledge that they are being used to promote the terrorist agenda. Whenever a democracy is presented with the lose-lose option and chooses to defend its citizens by going after terrorists who are hiding among civilians, this trio of predictable condemners can be counted on by the terrorists to accuse the democracy of ‘over-reaction’, ‘disproportionality’ and ‘violations of human rights’. In doing so they play right into the terrorists’ hands...
Israel has every self-interest in minimising civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximising the same — on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the terrorists from killing their innocent civilians.
