For Whom The Kassam Falls

There's a number of people (or they are a few very noisy cockmongers) who appear to think that Israel should not respond* to Palestinian attacks with Kassam rockets because they are little more than big firecrakers and have caused only... well, a variable number of deaths in a variable timeframe as a function of how dramatic the statement is intended to be.

I have some thoughts about these asshats.

1 - If they were the target of Kassam attacks, I suppose they would rapidly change their opinion about the inoffensivness of said rockets.

2 - The change of opinion would of course occur at a stupendous speed if similar weapons were fired by Israel into Gaza. Oversized firecrackers are are bound to turn into instruments of criminal genocide in no time.

3 - They are too deprived of logic an rationality to realize that casualties are low because Israel has an effective early warning system and a diffuse shelter network where citizens can take refuge. Curiously enough, not even in Naples - where the most insane big ass firecrakers are common fare - people run to shelters on New Year's Eve night.

4 - Even so, the damage of the rocket attacks is not limited to deaths, but it also includes lighter casualties and psychological trauma, property damage and the near impossibility of carrying out normal everyday activities under the barrage.

5 - Proportion in war is not the ratio between damage taken and damage that can be done to the other side (this is in fact a tribalistic and primitive view of warfare), but rather refers to the force that can be used to achieve a certain objective.

6 - Most of those holding that asinine position are too ignorant and ideologically blinded to even consider all the above. Some are too stupid as well.

*In fact their position is rarely expresses in such a coherent and clear fashion. Often it is a mess of poor logic and poorer expression that in theory grants Israel a right to self-defense but in practice denies any effective action. Much like British laws on individual self-defense.