What Digby Said

Another installment of What Digby Said, this time on Israel and the US reaction to the invasion of Gaza:

You know, it's one thing for people to dispute whether Israel's incursion into Gaza is disproportionate. It seems obvious to me that it is, but people can argue that in good faith. However, I'm frankly gobsmacked by the cavalier attitude of some Israeli and American politicians, like Michael Bloomberg, who blithely assert that a disproportionate response is exactly the right thing to do:

"The concept of proportional response is one of the stupider things I've ever heard in my life. If it was your family, would you want a proportional response? No, you'd want every single resource to be brought to bear to stop those who are killing innocent people."

Well then genocide and nuclear holocaust are logically on the menu too, eh?

By Bloomberg's logic Israel has the right to turn Gaza, the West Bank, and any number of Arab states into smoking parking lots of blackened glass. Of course, by the same logic, the Arab states and Palestinians have the right to do the same to Israel.

International laws only really work if every actually follows them. When nation-states stop doing so because of political expediency, well...bad things happen.