Could Israel (and the US) have really been so short of information?

Oh yes. Israel says it has found a command center at Al Shifa hospital and is showing military equipment. Al Jazeera claims nothing and Israel is a fabricated source.

Could Israel (and the US) have really been so short of information?

Kill only the seriously ill, children and the elderly?

Assume no tunnels. If so, Hamas is very stupid. You don’t have to be a great war strategist to realize that tunnels under hospitals and preschools have advantages. Your enemy should think twice (maybe three, four or five times) before bombing or invading you. Think of the risk the Israeli army is taking by entering that tunnel. Consider the considerations of the Israeli generals.

Martin van Creveld, an influential Dutch-born Israeli military historian, said in a 2009 interview. Green Amsterdam: “War is often not well understood by strategists. A war is not about killing, but about the will to be killed. That is essential. If you want to kill others and don’t accept that you can be killed, that’s not war, it’s extermination. That’s Auschwitz.”

Willingness to be killed – the object at stake here. That desire is greatest in Hamas. It is the highest honor to die there. For Israelis – not to celebrate death but to celebrate life, individuality and self-realization – the choice to be killed must be made very carefully. And then some think that Israeli soldiers are simply walking such a tunnel out of revenge.

The question remains unanswered: What if Israel had not allowed itself to occupy Gaza with such force? Proportionate punishment? A tooth for an eye? Should Israel have not only killed random Palestinians, but also raped women and killed children? Is it proportional? The challenge for Israel seems to be: Find a brigade that will work hand in hand, keeping the proportionality calculation neat.

Of course this contrasts with retaliatory intent: it must always be (much) bigger than the event to be retaliated against, otherwise you get nothing out of it, because you don’t actually prevent anyone from doing something. And brutal.

Theodore Holman (1953) is a columnist, author, television and radio producer. You can read his article here every day except Sunday. Read all of Theodore Holman’s columns.

Comment? [email protected].