Three weeks ago Israel attacked Gaza after the kidnapping of an IDF soldier. Greece called the Israeli military action a disproportionate response. After Hezbollah forces in Lebanon kidnapped two more Israeli soldiers, the Jewish state attacked Lebanon. The European Union warned that Israel’s disproportionate response can lead only to a worsening of the crisis. France’s foreign minister condemned Israel’s attacks on Lebanon as “a disproportionate act of war.” Russia criticized Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” against Lebanon and Gaza.
Early in the summer of 1914 an obscure European aristocrat, Archduke Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. Within a few weeks England declared war on Germany and millions died in muddy trenches. That was a disproportionate response.
On September 1, 1939 Hitler declared war on Poland because, he claimed, some Poles attacked a minor German radio station on the border. That was a disproportionate response, too. Two days later, England declared war on Germany. That was also a disproportionate response.
There are three reasons why those who call any nation’s response to anything “disproportionate” are not being statesmen they are just being silly.
The first reason is that no one person or group is in a position to determine another’s priorities. Most westerners did not denounce the Muslim reaction of rampage and murder to the now-famous Danish cartoons, as disproportionate. It would have been a meaningless indictment. Obviously to millions of Muslims, massacres and pillage were precisely the right response to Danish satire. We show who we are by what we react to and how we do the reacting.
The point about someone who pulls a gun on the driver who cut in front of him is not that his reaction was disproportionate. The point is that in doing so, he reveals something important about who he really is.
Different cultures behave differently. Public school teachers have told me of their pity for those children raised in refined families who become traumatized by the callous brutality and terrifying violence they encounter for the first time in some of their new school mates.
The second reason that using the term “disproportionate” is silly is that most of the major and earth shattering events of history seem to be disproportionate responses to apparently trivial incidents. Only a fool thinks that the American War of Independence was launched by a tea tax or a shot fired on a village green in Lexington. Only a fool thinks that the War Between the States was launched by Confederate fire on a fort in Charleston Harbor.
Of course we all realize that those seemingly trivial incidents did not really trigger great upheavals all on their own. They might have been the proverbial straw that pushed things one step too far. The little incident is merely the small visible part of the iceberg. Only a fool would say that World War II was England’s disproportionate response to Hitler.
Finally, the third reason why it is silly to label as disproportionate any response is that whenever someone provokes another person, he nearly always considers the punitive response he earns to be disproportionate. It is just another way of saying, “Had I known this is how you’d react, I wouldn’t have done what I did in the first place.”
It is always our choice whether or not to aggravate and goad other people. Once we do so it is too late to complain about the response we provoke. It is a good idea for parents trying to train children not to hit one another to punish whichever child touched the other first. Parents should never allow themselves to be trapped into a debate about how hard Johnny hit Tommy and whether that first aggression justified Tommy’s disproportionate response. “But I only tapped him” said Johnny, “and he punched me.” The rule of wise parenting is this: Johnny can regulate only his own behavior. If he starts up with Tommy, even only a tap, anything could happen.
And let us not forget that different cultures view the value of a single human life quite differently. Jews and Christians deriving their values from a Bible that stresses, “Choose life” regard every human life as sacred. There are obviously other cultures in the world that see things quite differently.
Our own U.S. Special Forces maintain a code of honor about never abandoning a brother on the battlefield and not leaving one of their own to fall into the hands of the enemy. Coming from the same Biblical tradition, Israel sees things in pretty much the same way.
The fourteenth chapter of Genesis describes one of the Bible’s early wars. One army did something really stupid. They captured Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and held him. Upon hearing of this, Abraham, who had been minding his own business, immediately launched an attack. He inflicted a crushing defeat upon that army. He wiped them out, recovered his nephew, and seized all the possessions of his antagonists. How silly it would be to term Abraham’s response disproportionate. How equally silly are those who call Israel’s response in these dangerous times, disproportionate.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin is president of Toward Tradition and a noted rabbinic scholar and national public speaker.