A small note on the principle of proportionality

I despair of the situation in Gaza.

The more I see of Tzipi (Zippy) Livni, the more I wish she had stayed on "Rainbow". And the more I see of Mark Regev, the more I wonder how he sleeps at night.

The problem with Israel and Gaza is that both sides are past masters of "whataboutery". "Whataboutery" is a concept invented (I think) by the blogger Slugger O'Toole. Basically, what happens is that one side says "What about these bombs you are dropping on us" and the other side says "Yeah, well what about all these rockets" and the first side says "Yeah, well what about all these settlers" and the other side says "Yeah, well what about all these suicide attacks" and so it goes, leapfrogging over each other til you get back to Biblical times and the Hittites smiting the Shemites.

Neither Hamas nor Israel is capable of understanding that two wrongs do not make a right. It would be easy to say that they are both equally to blame for the current situation in Gaza, except for one thing. Disproportionality.

To understand what I am getting at, consider the example of Northern Ireland. For twenty five years, until John Major of all people finally saw sense and opened up a dialogue that led eventually to a fragile peace, we here in England suffered in an undeclared war with the IRA. Now there were, undoubtedly, English atrocities during that time, or at least, if not atrocities, let's say dirty tricks, collusion, turning a blind eye, the occasional shoot to kill instead of due process of law, that sort of thing.

But never once, while the IRA was blowing up our pubs, our railway stations and our town centres, did we retaliate by sending in the RAF to strafe Belfast indiscriminately, and then when the world howled in protest, say "well, it's their own fault, there are terrorists all mixed up with civilians and I'm damned if we can tell them apart".

Yet this is exactly what Israel is getting away with in Gaza. True, Hamas probably do exploit the situation, because they know that every time the Israelis cock up and hit a school instead of a rocket launcher, it's another notch on the propaganda ratchet. In that respect, Hamas are guilty of using the people who elected (yes, elected, remember) them into government, as pawns in a cynical propaganda campaign. But Israel's response is so disproportionate as to be breathtaking in its arrogance. The other night on the news, Tzipi Livni was saying that Hamas hide their rockets in amongst civilians because "they don't care if they use their own people as human shields" - she omitted the crucial four words "and neither do we".

Israel justifies its actions because of a supposed threat to its existence, from a few zealots with clapped out rockets made from old gas pipes and shit like that, in a state where Israel has created, in effect the world's biggest concentration camp, and can turn off the taps of aid, food and trade, whenever it likes. A state whose inhabitants ride about on donkeys while Israel has tanks and (probably) nuclear weapons.

No, Israel is doing this just because it can. They will never achieve a "military" solution, because even if they destroy Hamas they will have created a whole new generation of potential jihad martyrs in doing so, and if Hamas goes, something even worse will take its place. Israel knows this, they are not stupid. It's all to do with posturing and seeming "strong", after the drubbing they got in Lebanon the other year.

So, if a single rocket falls on Israeli soil, then revenge is visited tenfold on the Palestinians, or even an hundredfold. Is this ever going to break the cycle of whataboutery? What do you think.

And of course, if you dare to criticise them, they play their trump card. Any criticism of Israel is presented as being anti semitic, and before you know where you are, you are a holocaust denier! The irony that they are now doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to six million European Jews in 1941-45 is completely lost on them.

And we are going to pick up the bill, apparently. When the IDF eventually deign to let the aid in, it will be the British taxpayer, yes the same British taxpayers who are losing their jobs in droves and shouldering the burden of rescuing the failed and profligate banks, who will be paying seven million pounds to fund this.

Bollocks! Israel is a rich country and the least, the very least, that we should demand is that they should pay to clear up their own mess. So I look forward to hearing that Broon has frozen all Israeli assets in the UK and deducted seven million pounds from them.

RIP Rachel Correy, by the way. I know her name gets up the noses of Zionists, so it will do them no harm to know she is remembered.