Don't worry about the civilian casualties too much, NATO has them in Afghanistan and the US doesn't count them in Iraq. Yes perhaps Israel feels a stronger or a similar moral obligation than or as NATO countries, and perhaps the media has a vast bias towards this conflict than towards any other conflict in the war on terror. Yes in fact if one compares how some newsmedia, like the BBC, treat this war when compared to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan where their own servicemen are fighting, the difference is obvious and vast. It is almost like a football match where the BBC can be pro-England when their own boys are fighting terrorists but when it's Israel vs Hezbollah they suddenly feel the urge not to take sides, in this war on terror. So yes do worry about the civilians! When I see them drag out a child from under the rubble, it is patently obvious to me that Hezbollah and Iran want me to see it, they want me to feel revulsion and turn it against Israel. I refuse to be used as a pawn their horrible game, but sometimes I think Israel walks into this without realizing this is the war on terror, this is about the hearts and minds of those watching, that's where the war is taking place too. In our war on terror, the pen will be eventually mightier than the sword, or so I hope.

It's why the zionst gang did bomb Beyrouth airport which obviously belong to Hezbollah. Damned zionist criminals.

THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW WHO HEZB'ALLAH REALLY IS THESE PICTURES WILL SHOW THEM: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=HEZBOLLAH%20SALUTE&sp=1&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t400&SpellState=n-2949443455_q-6st8YsMbveXZBPRdjl/X4AABAA@@&fr2=tab-web

To follow the logic of "proportionality", Isreal should send suicide bombers into Palestine and Lebanon, and hopefully do enough damage so that Europeans will scream for the world to come to the aid of Isreal. The new and old Arab strategies look identical: Nazrallah gets rich & powerful while he turns Lebanon into rubble, just like Arafat got wealthy and famous turning the Palestinian areas into rubble. You can't have "proportionality" against an organization that continually breaks international law and every pledge/treaty it makes. The leaders of Hezbollah are perfectly happy turning the Middle East into rubble - as long as money flows into their Swiss bank accounts, their faces get on TV, and the Hezbollah soldiers believe the fantasy that they will go to heaven.

Israel is defending herself. If UN resolution 1559 had been implemented this would not have happened. I'm amazed that countries that have themselves been victimized by terrorists don't realize that anyone that does not agree with the Hizbollah agenda will also be targets in the future. Will these countries then standby and not protect its citizens. How will they feel when Hezbollah/Iranian rockets or missles or WMD are headed their way. The governments of Egypt, Jordan and Saudia Arabia want Hizbollah/Iran/Syria stopped.

The country who is attacked has a right to respond, because any attack from a country is an act of war. Lebanon attacked Israel because they supported Hezbollah, and even if they did, they are responsible for their citizens actions.

It is Hizbullah that trys to MAXIMIZE civilian casualties in Lebanon and Israel. Hizbullah is criminal AND in violation of Islamic law.

Every Israeli soldier lost is lost on behalf of protecting Lebanese civilians. The world has to realize that if the Israeli's we 1/10 as callous as the world claims, they would not be losing any soldiers at all. Every brave Isreali means that 1000's of Lebanese civilians have been saved. Frankly I don't think the Israelis owe this to the Lebanese people, but I am proud of them for doing the right thing. Fighting a moral war against an immoral enemy comes at a very high cost. Too high in my opinion. I have to wonder how many Brits remember the Nazi V2 program, perhaps they can harken to that time and realize what this missile threat really means and just how careful and compassionate the Israeli's have been compared to any other nation.

When Israel's critics speak of disproportionality, I wonder if they are thinking that this is a football match that got out of hand instead of an armed conflict. War is not supposed to be proportional. When it is you get two forces bogged down for years in muddy trenches; dying by the thousands for gains of a few meters. The only way to fight a guerrila terrorist army is to destroy all its power with overwhelming force. The only disproportionality that ought to draw complaints is Hezbollah hiding behind civilians while Israel fights in the open.

1) To prevent military materielle from getting in or out of Lebanon 2) To prevent removing the Israeli soldiers that were taken hostage from Lebanon 3) To prevent the escape of Hizbollah's leadership from Lebanon Perhaps if they had the ability, the Lebanese would have disarmed Hizbollah and things never would have devolved to this. But since they didn't, and feared "civil war", unfortunately Israel had to do this. The airport is clearly a military target, because Lebanon does not prevent Hizbollah from using it to enhance their fighting power. I don't expect you to be satisfied with this answer - you're probably saying a question rather than asking it - but this is, indeed, the answer.

Legally, it means that you have to consider what level of military power you apply to achieve an end, and whether you could have achieved that with less destruction. It's a slippery definition. For example, bombing from higher altitudes decreases accuracy, but increases the safety of your pilots. The chances of unintended casualties are greater when bombing from higher altitudes. At the expense of those who were hurt, do we offset the reduction of risk to our own assets? Or using the same scenario, can we say that bombing from higher altitudes means the pilot will be under less pressure, and thus he'll be able to place his bombs more carefully than he could if he were bombing from lower altitudes? The whole issue is subject to tendentious debate. My preferred definition is "whatever it takes to get the job done, but not more". If the target is reasonably a military target, then if you can destroy it with conventional weapons for example, there is no need to use non-conventional weapons. Beyond that, I think the whole issue is trotted out by people who do not complain about disproportionate actions by Israel's enemies, and who are just looking for something else to hang Israel on. It really isn't about what Israel does, it's about Israel not being allowed to win because they support the other side in the conflict. That, by definition, is "bias", and biased people should not be passing judgment on what "disproportionate" means.

I was thinking about them yesterday; the Germans used to fire them from Scheveningen and The Hague on the coast into London. The allies repeatedly bombed the launch sites, these were very difficult to target and were situated close to populated areas. On one retaliatory strike that hit the Hague instead of its intended target, on march 4th 1945, 486 civilians lost their lives. The German propaganda machinery loved such events and could be counted upon to find someone who just lost a family member to be critical of the Allies. If that someone was critical of the Germans too they would get a quick escort to the nearest Gestapo unit. Certain terrorist organisations operate in this time honed fashion and their propaganda gets a warm reception in our media. I think if Churchill was alive today he would be shocked at the ease with which our independent news media relay enemy (terrorist) propaganda. But that as an aside. http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/denhaag.html

So zionist infrastructures as factories, airports, ports, banks etc. have to be considered as legitimate targets.

The country is called Israel not the Zionist Entity as your mullahs like to call it. Can you say ISRAEL??? Oh and by the way, stick with things you know.. Like torching cars in Paris. And leave the war to the big boys who know about the military.

They are legitimate targets if they are directly used to enhance Israel's military power. One by one: Israel's air force has its own airports. These are legitimate targets, Ben Gurion airport, which is a civilian facility and for the use of non-combatants is not. The portion of Israel's ports that serve the Navy would be legitimate targets. Banks are for sure not, as unlike Hezbollah, states don't need commercial banks. States fund their military with money that they print. OUr banks are exclusively civilian institutions. Anyway, what difference does it make, when clearly Hizbollah is aiming for civilian targets? What's the point of arguing what's legitimate if HIzbollah doesn't even make an effort to avoid civilian targets?

Firstly, many people may think that Israel's response to Hizbullah's aggression is "disproportionate" because they are unaware of the devastation of northern Israel, they don't know about all the people bombed out of their homes and livelihoods, they see everything from one side only. This is largely the fault of media bias - I don't want to keep banging on about this but a look at the BBC News website this morning found numerous Lebanon-related features but nothing at all about the Israeli catastrophe or the people affected. Secondly, the article is correct in saying that the international community must not allow Hizbullah to rearm, and indeed a solution to all our woes is impossible without the support of the international community. The problem here, of course, is that the international community supports our enemies, and only when more countries are impacted seriously by Islamic terror will there be any chance of a change in attitude. (Would the Palestinians be persisting with terror if the EU, UN, etc told them that all aid of any kind would be conditional on a total and permanent end to terrorism?)

Donné moi ton adress ...

Khizb-Allah is doing their maximum to rain down destruction and death on Israeli civilians. Proportionality demands we do the same, abandoning the principle of surgical bombing to begin carpet bombing of civilians. Our maximum includes napalm, etc. Also we'd have to send in terrorists to blow up their restaurants, buses and malls and kidnap them. Since we're not filled with enough hate to commit suicide we'll have to hire mercenaries to do that part. We can afford it. Yup, proportionality is do-able. But I don't think we should. Further, proportionality implies a never-ending battle, because as the enemy is weakened proportionality weakens the other party, ensuring that that the fighting and bloodletting continue forever. Peaceniks are simplistic, shallow and myopic. Paqid Yirmeyahu Israeli Orthodox Jew Advancing Logic as Halakhic Authority Welcoming non-Jews www.netzarim.co.il

have been reading these analysis about these conflict since 10-20 years ago it is like shewing endless gam with no juce. fight fight fight and one more fight in thae god dam holy promised land!!!

Thousands of Israelis have become refugees because Hezbollah is trying to kill them. Thousands of Lebanese have become refugees becaus Israel is trying NOT to kill them.

When speaking of proportionality, the talk is not concerning Hizbullah, but the Lebanese Civilians in the "north", as well in the "south". So u miss the crucial point critics of Israel are posing! Please re-read the critics again

israel is now facing an enemy that has waged a total war aganist her. that enemy's spokeman repeatedly declares intention to keep this war going until total destruction of israel, and thair wish to cause max casualties among israelis. therefor, any israeli response that is short of total war is indeed disproportional. by keeping some measure of discrimination between military and civilian targets, israel does in fact show proper restraint. as for collateral damages that do occur, complaints should be adressed to the terror organization that chose to fight from within civilian population, and to the international community that turned a blind eye when hizbulla was building it's power in lebanon.

Proportionality. Dave , Israel - you summed it up well. I think you would agree, once an enemy chooses no longer to differentiate between military and civilian targets, questions of proportionality seem curiously out of place. Proportionality lends itself as a concept to the worlds of diplomacy and normal governance. Not the world inhabited by terrorists. The entrenchment of Hizbullah within the nation of Lebanon could not be achieved with out the risks attached to and implicitly accepted by her people. These risks included war, should it arise. Those who bandy about questions of proportionality in military campaigns against terrorism should also engage in questions of the responsibility of nations and their citizens who host terrorist organizations. There is a price to pay by a soverign state found asleep at the helm of the ship of nation building. It is a high price and paid by accepting responsibility for the humanitarian costs of cowardess in dealing with pending domestic disasters. In this case the predictable results of allowing Hizbullah to govern southern Lebanon. This military response was warrented, and patiently applied with ample warning to all concerned. Painful, preventable and yes proportionate.

"We're not filled with enough hate..." You're right, you're filled with mountzans and oceans of racism... this is the minimum required to perform your criminsa bombings... on children and civilians! But don't forget... you're feeding arab and islamic extremists.

Nicely put, and I concur entirely with your assesment of the meaning of the term, being that it is proportionate to the end to be acheived, ie. not using a steamhammer to crack a nut when a nutcracker is available.

Isreal you need to do what you need to do. The Europeans, and the world will always consider you the villian. So accept that and eliminate the Arab problem from the world.

What about resolution 242

Wars are won by those who deliver disproportionate harm on their enemies. Proportionate response is a formula for stalemate, and more death in the long run. In WWII battle of Okinawa, 12,500 US military died, and 150 Japanese civilians, plus 130 Japanese military. Disproportionate? Or the necessities of winning a war? This "disproportionate" issue is being fabricated by those who neigher understand war nor history. Israel must smash Hizbulloh, or they will lick their wounds and attack you again.