Post Purim Stuff.
For a serious examination of the "virtues" of proportionality, you really want to take a look at Or Honig's essay "The End of Israeli Military Restraint" in the Winter 07 issue of The Middle East Quarterly. I'll lead with the conclusion, but I strongly urge you to read what precedes it.
Choosing between the two schools, restraint versus preemption remains a dilemma that plagues not only Israel but also the United States. Both governments should derive lessons from the failure of Western restraint on Hezbollah. It is better to act before metastasis of a problem.
Israel's initial restraint toward Lebanon after the May 2000 withdrawal reflected Israeli officialdom's inability to admit mistakes and learn the lessons of the Oslo period. Many Israeli political and military officials who had embraced Oslo remained reluctant to acknowledge its failure, even in light of insurmountable intelligence and a mounting terrorist campaign. Wishful thinking trumped dispassionate analysis. Even critics of the Lebanese withdrawal, men such as IDF chief of staff Shaul Mofaz or Netanyahu, mesmerized by relative quiet along the northern border, backed away from preempting Hezbollah.
The devastating consequences of the policy of restraint show that strategic concepts can misguide policy for long periods and even in different arenas. Only an accumulation of Hezbollah and Palestinian attacks was sufficient to awaken Israel from its peace process slumber, at least temporarily.
So where should Israel go? It would be a mistake to equate a choice of deterrence versus restraint with a decision of war versus peace. The goal of any serious Israeli politician, whether from the right or the left, is to maintain Israel's security. But after almost six decades of experience and after trying both strategies, Israeli policymakers would be remiss not to recognize the effectiveness of deterrence and the folly of restraint. Diplomacy and deterrence need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, deterrence may actually enhance the effectiveness of Israel's diplomacy. If deterrence is to work, though, Israeli politicians must make a sustained rather than episodic commitment to the doctrine. A disproportionate response to terror should be the rule, not the exception.
Footnotes, omitted. Emphasis, mine.
