There are several ways of measuring proportionality. If Hamas sent over let's say one thousand missiles over a few years, Israel could use the Christian misinterpretation of 'eye for eye' and Israel could shoot 1,000 missiles back at Gazan civilians. Alternatively Israel could assassinate those resposible for the missiles and target the leaders of Hamas, as Hamas takes the credit for the missiles. Fewer Gazan civilians get hurt if Israel targets the top terrorists. This would to me seem a better option.

Indeed, this is what we're doing, targeting the top terrorists and also taking out - as far as possible - the rocket launching sites. We have excellent intel but it's no easy job, particularly, as is their habit, the terrorists situate their launching sites close to civilian installations, including kindergartens, hospitals, knowing that Zahal will do everything to avoid hitting civilian sites, although under international rules of war once a civiian site is used for hosstile purposes, it becomes a legitimate target.

A great many barbarians have been sent to The Great Tent Beyond under his orders. It's all good.

Never mind about Christian misinterpretations and secular options. The guiding principle should be the law of rodef;if somebody is pursuing you to kill you,you should kill him before he can carry out his intention.When Israel acted according to that in 1967 it succeeded brilliantly. Maybe if the IDF hadn't been so shackled and struck a long time ago,this whole situation might never have arisen. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Danny - I have to agree to some extent, and it is indeed much better this way than lobbing 1,000's of missiles back at them. But to be fair, the Israeli missiles would cause 10 of thousands of deaths and cause unimaginable damage, whilst the Palestinians hardly ever hit anything. The reference to al-Jabari being a mass murderer is also a bit far fetched I think - how many Israeli deaths can be blamed on the man? one thousand? ten thousands? or 5? In any case, the issue has to be resolved obviously - and this is not the way (applies to both sides). Israel is deluded if it thinks it can carry on like this for another 60 years, simply ignore the issue, ghettoise the Palestinians, and build walls and missile defence systems. Israel will have to agree to something which ends the conflict - and yes, the same with the other guys. Uri

Hussein Obama is our problem. Just do what you have to do.

Every country has the right to protect its borders,including Israel. Gaza is no Israel imposed Ghetto.It has a wide back door into Egypt.Take your complaint to the Egyptian government and ask them why they don't want their Arab brothers. THREE CHEERS FOR ISRAEL!!!

Although treated like the lap dog of the US, Israel is a sovereign nation. As such, Israel has the right to defend itself and protect its citizens without asking President Hussein's permission.

If someone's harassing you, you have the right to do what it takes to make them stop. Proportionality is justly balanced when you do what's necessary, but no more than necessary, to make them stop. Not when you do the exact amount of damage that they happen to have been lucky enough to do.

1000 arab terrorists for 1 Israeli, Gilad Shalit.

Could our Prime Minister be too busy with more important things? Or does he think that a President of the USA, who has been to Sderot, should not need it explained.

So tell me again,what did the Russians do when the Chechens took all those hostages in the theatre.

Hamas and the Palestinians and Hamas laid down their weapons and sued for REAL peace not just HUDNA ...along with teaching Peace and not Hate to their children ... As long as Hate is taught in textbooks and in the schools of palestinian communities ...Peace will Die before it sprouts ....

The proper way to defend against rocket fire is to destroy 100% of the rockets, 100% of the launchers, 100% of the terrorist slime that are firing them, and 100% of the terrorists trash, filth, slime leaders that give the orders to fire. After that, find 100% of the rocket suppliers such as Sudan and Iran and bomb them into the stone age. Now that is proportionality!

Killing Jabri in this fashion sends a message: Israel can take YOU out at anytime. Hamas would be wise to crawl into Egypt right about now. Operation Pillar Of Defense will be a measured and accurate operation this time. Israel just told Iran-We will not tolerate ANY more rockets being fired into Israel. They will defend their citizens at ANY cost, so if Iran wants to escalate this, Israel will be more then happy to oblige them and put them out of their misery. See how they briefed Obama AFTER they took action, Go Israel and May G-d Bless the IDF as they kill the cockroaches in Gaza.

Oh but Israel does target the top Hamas terrorists. Have you not been reading the latest news articles? Over 1000 missiles have been fired into southern Israel, alone, this year.

I agree with Danny, the Christians do not understand the Pharasaic/Midrashic teachings of Rabbi Yeshua and Rav Sh`al. Go Y`srael.

You Russians who brutally occupied all E. Europe and the Baltic's with incredible violent forces have no moral right to pontificate in this issue. You left an abysmal legacy - including the Jewish pogroms - all over the world wherever you went.

You missed the key point. Obama was informed AFTER the fact. Sent exactly the right message. Israel will not explain, Israel will not ask for "permission." Israel will do what it needs to do -- with startling accuracy. Two, three, maybe four or five hours later, some very low-level Israeli diplomat at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. will call the White House and inform. Or -- as happened in this instance -- the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem will simply refuse to take calls from the U.S. State Department and White House demanding to know what is happening. Talk about a humiliating moment for Obama! On the bright side, he now knows a great deal more about Israel's capabilities and Israel's resolve than he has ever known. He doesn't like it. But he knows it now. And all of Israel is laughing at the emasculated American "president."

You make a good point. Furthermore, historically, Israel's assassination of senior members of the Hamas junta in Gaza is the only Israeli response that has ever actually caused Hamas to curtail nearly all rocket attacks for months at a time. And as an aside, Israel's assassination of these senior terrorists has been accomplished with SIGNIFICANTLY LESS FORCE and SIGNIFICANTLY LESS COLLATERAL DAMAGE than Obama's own assassinations of senior al Qaeda terrorists.

Israel has plenty of small-scale weapons as well as large ones. But the point is that unlike Hamas, Israel does not deliberately target civilians, and its actions are intended to create deterrence. Israel has nearly always been willing to cease firing first if a durable ceasefire could be initiated; so its actions have nothing to do with revenge or with murdering civilians, but rather to do with making the enemy to reluctant to continue trying to murder Israelis. Hamas' rockets deliberately target Israeli civilians, not in order to create deterrence, but rather in order to murder Jewish civilians, period. Everything that Hamas says or does screams this at volume 11. Hamas rockets - frequently including Grad rockets - are fired by preference into Israeli towns, and the reason why so few Israelis are injured is Israel's intensive defensive measures, which include Tzeva Adom, legal mandates to include fortified rooms or bomb shelters in new construction, bomb shelters even on playgrounds, ceaseless vigilance by the IDF, Iron Dome and others, as well as extremely good luck on the part of Israelis and the difficulty of aiming many of the flying bombs launched by Hamas. Don't confuse that with Hamas' flying bombs being negligible. Al Jabari is a mass murderer and would have murdered many more had he not been thwarted. As for hiding behind walls while Hamas fires endless rockets into Israel, that's a crazy suggestion. Hamas has NO intention of EVER ceasing fire, unless it pays a price. It is ideologicslly and religiously committed to the utter destruction of Israel, and it is a dictatorship that holds absolute power in Gaza. There is NO compromising with the man who insists on his absolute right to slaughter you, your wife and your kids. Dream on, Uri.

Even under Obama, America's response would be devastating if a rocket ever landed on any American city or town. America doesn't absorb terror attacks. Neither should Israel. Level Gaza!

Sorry folks...all of you who say that Israel has a right to defend herself are wrong. No nation has a right to self-defence. Self-defence is an obligation. It is not a right.

in war, each side uses whatever it has available to fight the enemy World War 2, America had nukes, Japanese didn;t The only thing that the USA was concerned with was winning & ending the war

Now more than ever it is time for Israel to completely ignore critics. Don't stop now. Continue the operation. You are obliged to protect your citizens. Having to see 1 million people be shoved into bomb shelters to save their lives from hundreds of rockets being fired at them is the absolute height of cowardice by Hamas and its terrorist brethren. That the UN can sit idly by watching this effectively saying that it is okay to do this to Jews means that nothing has changed in this god forsaken world. Well guess what Israel and jew haters, I am not alone in watching you in readiness to take you on. If you want to know what that means, keep wanting. Some of us are over it. God bless Israel.

Bear that lesson in mind when you grab that AK, get your fat out of the fortified bunker, and settle with your blood enemies head on. No more screwing around. Just do the necessary work.

It has become tedious that the ongoing missile attacks against Israel were of no great concern to the Arab League and U.N.

While you are laughing at the President some woman in Gaza has had her 7th child and vows that when he is 15 he will atttack Israel. Weither Obama was informed or not, your tax dollars will go to pay for this mess. Perhaps your brother will be called to defend the IDF for Netanyahu´s next war.

Dave did you get hit in the head by one of those rockets?