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Israeli Military Action to Defeat Hamas Is Proportionate to the Threat from Hamas

(Fathom-BICOM-UK) Prof. Alan Johnson - What is meant by "proportionality" in war? The goal pursued by military action must be proportionate to the ongoing threat faced. Israel's goal of the removal of Hamas as the controlling political and military power in Gaza is proportionate because 7 October made clear that Hamas now poses an existential threat to Israel. Israel's goal is proportionate to the revelation that the mass slaughter of all the Jews of Israel will be attempted again and again by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad until successful, under the guiding hand and financial support of a nuclear threshold state religiously committed to Israel's destruction, Iran. Although Hamas has declared this eliminationist goal openly, again and again, Western liberal opinion refused to take it seriously. ("No, they can't mean that! No one can mean that!") 7 October 2023 should have brought an end to the games that Westerners play with genocidal Hamas statements, to their clever-clever "translating" of them into mere "rhetoric." But Israel's neighborhood is a bit different from the Modern Languages Association annual conference. In that region, when someone says they intend to kill you, they really intend to kill you. All of you. The writer is the editor of Fathom Journal.
2023-10-26 00:00:00
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