Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen declared in the Washington Post on Tuesday that an-eye-for-an-eye would be a hopelessly wimpy policy for the Israeli government.
"Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness," he wrote. "For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy's back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights."
Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like "punch out your lights" as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.
Read the full column.