The antistrophe is still being organized by the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force. Some 300,000 reservists have been mobilized. Israeli had supplied water, electricity, and food to Gaza. All have been shut off. The IDF has warned the 1.1 million civilians living in the north of the Gaza Strip, the populous stronghold of Hamas, to evacuate south within twenty-four hours. Invasion by Israel is probably imminent.

Hence the many headlines demanding that Israel’s response not be “disproportionate.” Among my favorite examples of this dubious exercise of double standards came from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “All persons,” he intoned, “must respect international humanitarian law. They must immediately cease attacks targeting civilians and attacks expected to cause disproportionate death and injury of civilians or damage to civilian objects.”

Then there was this gem, issued by the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, a diplomatic post opened by the Biden administration. “We unequivocally condemn the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred,” the post read. “We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

[Hamas has spent the last *generation* targeting Israeli civilians, mainly with the enthusiastic support of Gazand, even before their depraved slaughter of over 1200 civilians in their act of total war this week. The launch of this war in such a fashion makes all of the “disproportionate” warnings utterly ridiculous. — Ed]