Let the Punishment Be Equal to the Offen

Israel has a legitimate right to respond to terror attacks on its citizens. But care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt The ferocity of Israeli military operation in Beit Hanoun gives the impression that they are using excessive and disproportionate force, that their military operation is indiscriminate. The military badly failed to differentiate between combatants and civilians.

When the military operation started, the spokesman and Israeli Defense Minister said that the object of the operation was to destroy the rocket-launching infra structure. However, ravaged town of Beit Hanoun tells a different story. The Israeli military left behind wrecked houses, toppled utility poles, broken pipes lines, and fifty seven corpses.

According to the Mayor of the city of Beit Hanoun, 40 houses were destroyed and 400
damaged during the operation of the Israeli forces, they also destroyed the 700-year-old an-Nasr Mosque. The Israeli Prime has himself claimed that their forces have killed 300 Hamas operatives in three months.

In response to the Qassam missile attacks, Israel has been firing about 300 shells a day at Gaza at an estimated cost of more than £125,000 a day, according to the Israeli media. They have been firing shells close to Palestinian communities to stop militants from firing rockets at Israel. And the pattern of their shelling is indiscriminate. These types of indiscriminate attacks, if they are not directed at a specified target is forbidden under international law.

In 2006, only two Israeli were killed by the Qassam rocket attacks. Though many Israeli were critically injured. This incident occurred in Kibbutz Nachal Oz.

Any person with a good heart can easily discern that the Israeli response is disproportionate. I wonder how these crude missiles can be threat to Israel, which maintains a world class professional army. These rockets are home-made weapons, which were developed by Adnan al-Ghul in 2001. It is a very crude weapon and roughly carries two pounds of explosive.

Yoram Schweitzer of Tel Aviv's Jaffee centre for strategic studies says "Qassams are very primitive missiles and their main effect on Israelis in the area is psychological torment - a kind of 'Chinese water torture'." Despite that, Israel must show restraint in dealing with Palestinian militants. The way its army is handling the affairs will increase problems for the State of Israel.

During the recent operations, the army unnecessarily targeted and subjected to humiliation those Palestinians who were ordinary civilians and had nothing to do with the militants. They rounded up thousands of young man, many of them innocent, and subjected them to torture. This type of high-handedness will increase the anti-Semitism in the Palestinian and Muslim world, and humiliated young men will be easily prey for militants. Israel's leaders should know that the world does not grow better by force or policeman club.
It is said that wisdom comes from suffering. It looks that Palestinians never learn from anything. Wisdom consists of rising above madness and embracing common sense. It is madness if Hamas and other militants think that they can wipe out Israel with this crude weapon. This rash adventurism will only bring more misery to the Palestinian people.

They should ask their leaders how they can defeat a professional army with these crude weapons. Jean-Jacques Rousseau has rightly said, "To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will — at the most, an act of prudence."

Gazans got a golden opportunity to improve their condition in the fall of 2005, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the bold decision to pull out from Gaza. Instead trying to improve their condition, the Gazans fell prey to the evil ideologists and started to conspire against the State of Israel.

In the end I can say only “God help the fools who count on death for gain."