Reality check on Gaza

The Israeli war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza begs the question: what should a sovereign state do in response to terrorists?

Well, we could listen to anti-Israel words. Or we could listen to deeds.

For example, we could look at how Russia dealt with its Islamist threat in Grozny. In the mid-nineties, Russia basically shelled the city until it turned to rubble -- killing 27,000 Chechens. Oh -- and that was just one of three Russian attacks on the city. You can tool around on Google maps, satellite view, and still see flattened areas of the city. I'm sure the United Nations General Assembly is just polishing up the wording on their resolution to condemn Russia right now.

How about Sri Lanka? Their civil war with the terrorist Tamil Tigers has cost 70,000 lives. When will Sid Ryan and CUPE call for a ban on Sri Lankan academics?

Or how about the French? How about their own tangle with Arabs, in the case of Algeria? 150,000 dead?

But we need not go that far back. How about the first Gulf War, in which Canada participated? Depending on who you ask, between 20,000 and 200,000 Iraqis died.

Or, my favourite yardstick of over-reaction: Canada's October Crisis, where a handful of bombs going off in mailboxes and a couple of kidnappings was enough for the Liberals to put tanks in the street and suspend civil liberties in the whole country. Geez, what would Trudeau have done if actual rocket attacks had been launched, Gaza-style?

My point isn't to disparage any of the above military missions, though some were clearly excessive. My point is to compare the dainty approach taken by Israel -- which actually mass-dials Palestinian cell phones in advance of attacks, warning civilians to get out of the way -- with the brutal approach taken by other countries, especially Israel's critics.

I haven't even mentioned China's approach to Tibet or East Turkmenistan, let alone the response by other Arab countries to Islamists, like the massacre in Hama, Syria, where that city was surrounded and just shelled and shelled until 40,000 people -- about a quarter of the population back then -- were killed. By their own government.

The idea of any other country in the world -- including the very ethical U.S. -- acting as carefully as Israel in combat is unthinkable. (When the world saw the U.S. "shock and awe" attacks that opened the 2003 Iraq War, the global response was amazement and admiration, not human rights complaints.) And the thought that Arab nations, or dictatorships like China, would have any advice worth listening to, is execrable.