My question though is about balance? What would have been a proportionate response of Israel[?]
It's a fair enough question IMO; I don't know why 80schild is getting slated for it. I'll have a go at answering to the best of my knowledge. I'm sure I'll be told in no uncertain terms if I'm wrong :o
The question itself is based on the idea of a 'response'. A response to what? The final trigger point I suppose was the rockets being launched from Gaza after the bodies of the 3 murdered Israeli boys were found. Those rockets were in response to the Israeli police and security forces arresting around 350 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, including many civilian leaders belonging to the Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank. Israeli law allows for certain prisoners to be held without charge for up to 6 months. During the arrests, security forces searched civilian homes, businesses, universities and clinics and confiscated millions' of dollars worth of property. Two Palestinian civilians were shot dead and 11 injured. Quoting from The Economist now: "The Israeli security forces closed off the area around Hebron. Some 23,000 local Palestinians were barred from travelling to their jobs in Israel. A series of charitable organisations that used to be run by Hamas were closed down and a dairy, which employs hundreds of Palestinians, was demolished. Hebronites were prevented from travelling abroad."
Let's consider that for a moment. Three boys are kidnapped (one of the boys phoned the police from his mobile phone to report the kidnapping). Let's re-locate that crime to the UK. Three English kids are kidnapped in, say, Swansea (similar size population to Hebron). What would be the response? A huge search operation, GCHQ and MI5 called into play, refined intelligence and mobile phone signals being used to track and find the boys, pinpointed arrests. Not 350 arrests including most of Swansea Council, not a couple of Welsh people being shot dead, not 11 more injured by the police, not homes, businesses, Swansea University and a few GP offices being ransacked, not placing the whole of Swansea in lockdown, not preventing locals from commuting to Cardiff, not demolishing the HSBC building, not banning Swansea folk from going abroad.
Let's have a look at the political reaction during the search for the boys. The obvious answer for the Israeli government was that the kidnappings were the work of Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he 'knew for a fact' that Hamas was responsible but did not produce any proof. Hamas vehemently denied all involvement and it is now fairly widely acknowledged that the Hamas leadership weren't involved at all. Various inflammatory statements were thrown around e.g. the Economic Minister said that Israel would make joining Hamas 'a ticket to hell'. Israel's Deputy Minister of Defence threatened 'possible actions' against (Palestinian) Ramallah and Gaza.
Moving on... The bodies of the 3 boys were found in a field. Later that night Israeli security forces blew up the homes of the two main suspects and their families. Going back to our imagined scenario in Swansea, can you imagine the army blowing up a couple of semis because earlier in the day the police had arrested two suspects living there with their wives and children?
Once the boys were found, the rhetoric on both sides was stepped up. That was when I started thread 1, in absolute despair at the Israeli government's reaction. I've read through that first post a few times as I've considered the different pieces of information presented through the different threads and concluded that my opinion hasn't changed. Allowing the situation to escalate so far, to use such inflammatory rhetoric, was not the action of a responsible, peace-seeking government. I still think that this terrible campaign could have been avoided had the government been rather more measured in its response and kept their mouths shut until they knew the facts rather than making up their own from which they could not back down without seeming weak to their electorate and the international community.
What would the right reaction have been? Allowing the security agencies to conduct their search and recovery operation with respect for civil rights and keeping politics out of it. Enlisting the cooperation of the local authorities rather than arresting them. Handing the eventual 2 suspects (from a round-up of 350 remember...) over to be dealt with by the criminal justice system.
Hamas started firing rockets the day after the boys were found. Do you still think they 'started it'?
