So, what do we mean by proportional? Not what the anti-Zionists mean, for sure.

There's this website that's new to me, courtesy of the Elder of Ziyon, and he has the link to the site. There you will find this headline: What's a Proportional Response? and this wonderful memo (and therefore quote) from Ben Gurion, explaining an action against the Syrians in 1955: "Ben Gurion's explanation for the background of the action:

"We're in a difficult situation with the Arabs, because when they wish to destroy or murder, they don't have to kill hundreds of us at a time. Instead, they make our life miserable day by day. Maybe they can't do otherwise, since they're afraid to send an entire military unit against us. So they send a small squad, and the squad crosses the border and waits for nightfall. Under cover of darkness they wander around until they find an object or a person, and they destroy it or kill the person. Their intention is to do this for years and wear us down...

We can't do what they do, even if we wished to, because we can't kill civillians, say to start killing Arab civilians we meet along the way..

So we have two options. We can resign ourselves to this situation, or we can not resign ourselves to it. This government was created to not resign itself to such a situation. I announced this in the Knesset. Based on that announcement, I called [Eedson] Burns [the UN commander in the area] and informed him that this government would respond and he should tell [Gamal] Nasser...

On the Sea of Galillee they've got a system. They shoot at our fishermen, and they shoot at our police boats. The entire lake is in our territory, no-one disputes that. It's the begining of the fishing season, and they've been shooting a lot. It's merely a coincidence that none of our people was hurt, but the boats have been hit. We can't accept this situation... In Syria there's no efficient regime, they're perpetually on the verge of a putsch. Either we'll aquiesce with the loss of our right to fish, or we'll have to destroy their fortifications. We could do as they do, and simply shoot back, but then we'll hit their civilians, beause their troops are all protected by their fortifications. I said: we're not going to target their civilians, their women and children, their villages, so we'll have to take and destroy their fortifications."

By: Brian Goldfarb