Proportionate!

Ben Stein puts Israel's actions in Lebanon into perspective:

So, now I see that some commentators are saying that Israel's bombing of Lebanese Hezbollah strong points and neighborhoods is "disproportionate." The Israeli campaign, so this story goes, is bullying and terrorizing the Lebanese populace, and this is (so the argument goes) typical Israeli thug behavior.

Hmmm.

Let's see. In World War II, the Germans bombed exactly no United States cities or towns. We bombed the hell out of them, day and night, for more than two years, including helping the British with firebombing Dresden, one of the most appalling civilian killings by a free people of all time.

[Snip]

Now, Israel is bombing Beirut. The Lebanese have been sheltering Hezbollah killers who have been rocketing and bombing Israel for ten years almost every day. The Lebanese have admitted the terrorists into dominant positions in their government. In every way, Lebanon has made itself a haven for terrorists bombing civilians day in and day out in Israel. Is Israel finally standing up and saying enough "disproportionate"? Yes, if you think Israel and Jews should be permanent victims who suffer, bleed, and die in silence the way the Nazis preferred. No, if you believe Jews have the same rights as other people to defend themselves.

[Snip]

By any historic measure, Israel's response to a decade of torment is extremely restrained -- maybe too restrained. And it can stop any time the Hezbollah says they will use peaceful means to get their aims. I don't hear them saying that. What I hear is a thousand Hezbollah rockets falling on exclusively civilian targets in Eretz Israel. There's your answer about whether Israel's response is disproportionate.

By now the pattern should be familiar to everyone.Israel is attacked. Israel defends herself. The world condemns Israel.

Does anyone stop to wonder why? Why is Israel alone not granted the right claimed by every other nation on the surface of the earth, the right to defend herself?

By international agreement Lebanon was supposed to control its border with Israel. Lebanon was supposed to keep Hezbollah from staging terrorist attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil. The truth is that Lebanon finds itself in very much the same position that Afghanistan found itself in after 9/11. After all the Taliban did not have to offer shelter to al Qaeda and Lebanon did not have to allow Hezbollah a free hand in Southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese people cannot even claim, like the Iraqi’s under Saddam, that they had no say-so in the matter. Their government was democratically elected. They chose the leaders who crawled into bed with a murderous terrorist gang. The fact that the Lebanese Prime Minister is threatening to have the Lebanese Army fight alongside Hezbollah proves their complicity with the terrorists.

Sorry guys, but if you lay down with dogs you wake up with fleas. If you lay down with terrorists you wake up with a 500 lb. smart bomb crashing through the roof of your bedroom.