I propose that we Advance a little Rational Thinking to the complaints being lodged by a majority of the world against Israel in regards to the hostilities now taking place in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon. The most oft-heard complaint is that the Israeli response has been "disproportionate" to the provocation suffered by Israel in the cross-border attacks by Hamas and Hizballah.

“I call again for an immediate halt to the disproportionate use of force by Israel, which has already killed and wounded many civilians . . . “ Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, demanded, followed shortly thereafter by an order that “Israel’s disproportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop . . .”

UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Jan Egeland, condemned Israel for “a violation of humanitarian law”. During a tour of damaged areas in Beirut, Lebanon, Mr. Egeland pointed out “This is destruction of block after block of mainly residential areas. I would say it seems to be an excessive use of force in an area with so many citizens”. Mr. Egeland apparently decided to forego any kind of similar excursions into Haifa, Kiryat Shmona, Zefal, Hazar, Tiberius and Nazareth, or anywhere else within Israel itself.

Meanwhile, during a live television interview, Jacques Chirac, modestly appointing himself spokesman for all Europeans, stated: “I find honestly – as all Europeans do – that the current reactions [by Israel] are totally disproportionate”.

Fair enough! We will accept this charge of “disproportionality” as a valid and appropriate premise from which to begin a proportionality analysis. For this particular article, we will limit ourselves to an examination of the tragedy and suffering attributable to human losses. A discussion of the concept of proportionality in regards to property and infrastructure damage/ destruction must await a future treatment.

In order to ascertain what a proportionate response would be, we have to look at what the initial provocation was. In this case, it is universally accepted that Hizballah and Hamas each conducted cross-border raids that resulted in the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers and the deaths of five others. In Hizballah's case, the kidnapping was accompanied by a barrage of rockets specifically targeted at non-military areas within Israel, but this diversionary attack apparently did not result in any additional loss of human life.

In order to be completely "fair", lets look at what Hamas and Hizballah consider to be the extent of their transgressions. They have repeatedly stated that their immediate short-term goal (beyond the obvious longer-term goal of the “complete destruction of Israel”) is to seek to exchange the Israeli soldiers they hold in return for the release of Muslim "political" prisoners being held by Israel. The Hamas/Hizballah negotiating team has not advanced an exact number of such prisoners that would be an acceptable and proportionate trade for the three Israeli soldiers, but the number most often referred to is “all” or approximately 2,100 prisoners.

Therefore, using the numbers supplied by Hamas and Hizballah themselves, in the eyes of Hamas/Hizballah:

The life of 1 Israeli soldier = The lives of 700 Muslim/terrorist prisoners.

Neither Hamas nor Hizballah has offered any indication of what they consider the life of an Israeli civilian to be worth in terms of the number of likewise situated Lebanese or Gazan civilians. This type of calculation is complicated by the fact that these organizations do not believe that the lives of their own civilians are worth much. They continue to use their own “civilians” as human shields, secret their “fighters” among them, launch rocket attacks from their neighborhoods and rejoice in the fact that their own civilians are being killed instead of their organization’s “fighters”.

Additional difficulties are encountered when realizing that Hamas and Hizballah do not themselves believe that there is any such thing as an Israeli “civilian”. Hamas and Hizballah have expressed the belief that there are no true "civilians" in Israel because all Israelis are required to perform universal military service, and those who are unable to serve in the military for one reason or another (like only being 7- years old), are, nevertheless, equivalent to an enemy soldier in that their very existence helps create an economic climate that allows for the production of Israeli soldiers.

If we were to accept the claims and actions of Hamas and Hizballah indicating that the value of the lives of their own citizens is near 0 and the value of an Israeli civilian is nearly equivalent to that of an Israeli soldier, we could, consistent with their own claims and beliefs, assign a equivocal value of 1 Israeli civilian to 1,000 non-Israeli civilians. However, such an assignment, (despite being based on a legitimate interpretation of Hamas and Hizballah claims, beliefs and actions) would inevitably lead to a complaint that this entire exercise was nothing more than mere hyperbole. Therefore, we will assign an arbitrary, but exceedingly generous (from the standpoint of Hamas or Hizballah) equivalency number of :

The life of 1 Israeli civilian = The lives of 250 Lebanese/Gazan civilians.

Now that we have assigned equivalency numbers, numbers that are admittedly exceedingly generous when viewed from the Hamas or Hizballah point of view, we can determine exactly what an acceptable and "proportionate" response on the part of Israel would be.

Hamas and Hizballah have repeatedly claimed they have taken 3 Israeli Soldiers captive, therefore a proportionate response would be for Israel to take 2,100 Hamas and/or Hizballah “fighters” captive.

According to the latest numbers available (See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205378,00.html) there have been 24 Israeli Soldiers killed to date. Thus, a proportionate response would have resulted in the deaths of 16,800 Hamas/Hizballah fighters.

There have also been 18 Israeli Civilians killed so far. Therefore a proportionate response would have killed 4,500 Lebanese/Gazan civilians.

Numbers supplied by Hizballah and Hamas claim that a combined total of 422 of its civilians and fighters have been killed.