I totally agree with you. The laws that cannot be enforced are worth not more than a piece of paper they are written on. And a modern terrorism is a product of UN since criminal nations just found the way to circumvent those laws through all kind of proxies that are not part of UN.
Look, not only you insist that Israel's response should be proportional, you also insist on your very own very narrow definition of proportionality which takes 'capabilities' and absolutely nothing else into account. Personally, I don't see why Israel should be bound by the concept of proportionality. Israel was savagely and repeatedly attacked by two foreign entities and I have no problem with a "disproportionate" retaliation. Moreover even if I agreed that the response should be proportional - I would calculate the proportionality based on at least a dozen factors I mentioned above, not just "capabilities". I guess we'll have to agree to disagree whether response should be proportional and what proportionality actually means.
Maybe the minutemen in the U.S. can learn from this. They can just start firing indiscriminate bombs over the border and the U.S. won't have to worry about a thing because we can't help it if some rogue citizens decide to go on a shooting spree. Mexico would not be able to say a thing because the minutemen don't represent the government. See backwards third world countries can teach us something.
What is interesting about this proportionality discussion to me is how do you determine it. What if Israel ceased fire and did not fire a single missile or shoot a single bullet for 5 years. The Palestinians continue with suicide bombings killing on average 500 innocent Israelis a year. After the 5 years does Israel get to wipe out 2500 Palestinians at once? Or is it more a situation where they have to strike immediately back in order to count as part of this proportionality. I wonder if the Israelis have to respond with suicide bombings themselves to make it proportional as well? I mean one bomb and no self sacrifice with your own life doesn't seem very proportional to me.
I think the discussion is getting taken out of context? My initial comment was a musing on whether there was more to this than met the eye -- i.e. a prelude to a larger move by the US on Iran or some such with a concommitant move by Israel to create a buffer zone in advance. Since I wrote that we have had the Israeli foreign ministry linking Iran to the kidnappings. However, that was just my speculation. We got sidetracked on the proportional discussion along the way -- which was of course interesting in its own right. Anyway, "proportional response" as originally used by me was meant to examine the rationality of attacking hundreds of sites in Lebanon as a result of 2 soldiers being held hostage by the Hezbollah militia. The IDF lost at least 7 soldiers in the initial attack. The reprisals from Hezbollah led to 7 cities being attacked by rockets and numerous civilian injuries and at least one death. Here's a blogger's cynical take: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071306D.shtml My personal opinion is that a tit for tat approach -- which is what a proportional response really is -- has to be done immediately and clearly linked to the event which caused the response. Otherwise, it just looks like repression. If you engage in overkill all you do is create more fuel for the fire unless your overkill is so staggering that your enemies are scared instead of vengeful. In the 30 odd years that I have been watching Israel do this I can't say that things have changed much if at all... I still think this whole thing links into a feudalistic model of governance in these quasi states and that improving the economies of these "states" is the way out. But that's just my opinion du jour.
According to Israel's critics they really don't, they want Israel to punish only those who actually killed israelis, not innocent civilians. How very noble, huh? Israelis are certainly expected not to invade Palestine/Lebanon as that would be illegal collective punishment, Israel is not expected to assassinate Hamas leaders and hamas members as this response is illegal and disproportionate, I still remember all that bitching about the assassination of Sheikh Yasin. They believe that terrorists are entitled to their day in court but they don't want Israel to arrest them either as it's illegal and disproportionate to send israeli commandos into Gaza and besides that would certainly explain and justify kidnappings of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange. The recent arrest of Hamas ministers in Gaza was obviously wrong, illegal and also disproportionate. But of course when all possible options to deal with Hamas/Hezbollah are off the table Israel's critics are all unanimously in favor of punishing terrorists...somehow.
My educated opinion. I don't give a flying shit about either side. The problem is older than I am. If humanity manages to come up with energy source alternative to oil the whole bullshit will stop since nobody will pay attention to all those idiots there. Before Jewish state and before oil became an issue nobody gave a fuck that Egyptians treated Palestinians like shit.
There is definitely a double standard brought on by the "world community" to Israel. Funny that the U.N. can get a resolution to stop more Israeli strikes on the table in a matter of days, but they can't get a resolution for sanctions on North Korea voted on for six more months. Of course, Bush and his tyrants vetoed the resolution saying it unfairly favored the Lebanese in the long run. Bush's belief in the sovereignty of nations is the only thing helping the Israelis at this point.