Without any of the irony of Bob Dylan’s song from 1983, a writer named Gideon Levy in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz characterizes Israel as a “neighborhood bully” for its military action against Hamas in Gaza.

Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.

What began yesterday in Gaza is a war crime and the foolishness of a country. History’s bitter irony: A government that went to a futile war two months after its establishment – today nearly everyone acknowledges as much – embarks on another doomed war two months before the end of its term.

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Blood will now flow like water. Besieged and impoverished Gaza, the city of refugees, will pay the main price. But blood will also be unnecessarily spilled on our side. In its foolishness, Hamas brought this on itself and on its people, but this does not excuse Israel’s overreaction.

The history of the Middle East is repeating itself with despairing precision. Just the frequency is increasing. If we enjoyed nine years of quiet between the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, now we launch wars every two years.

Blood will flow like water, the writer tells his readers, and “the history of the Middle East repeats itself.” These things are inarguable, but merely stating them does nothing other than provide a kind of sanctimonious pedestal from which the observer can criticize those taking action.

Does Israel’s response to the persistent rain of rockets and mortars over its southern border “exceed all proportion”? This is the now-familiar theme being pursued by Israel’s critics across the capitals of the world — with the noteworthy and crucial exception, so far, of Washington D.C..

Hamas’s strategy of firing missiles into southern Israel cannot be understood in isolation. Although in isolation it is bad enough. No country on earth can tolerate these kinds of open attacks against its citizens and long remain a nation at all. But Hamas in the south is acting with a strategy similar to Hezbollah in the north. Both receive support from the Iranians, who are themselves pursuing a nuclear weapon and talking publicly of wiping Israel off the map. Theirs can be seen as a three-pronged strategy for the destruction of Israel without ever having to fight the Israeli Defense Forces in one enormous battle. It is a war of attrition, of threat and of fear. Israeli residents in the south of that tiny country must evacuate their homes under threat of Hamas missiles, just as residents of the north had to in 2006 as Hezbollah’s rockets were launched over the border (and just as they might have to again at any time). The mere fact that Iran is pursuing an atomic bomb and talking about the destruction of Israel puts a threat of doom over the heads of all Israelis. Imagine how magnified that will be once Iran actually achieves the bomb, or announces that it has achieved it. Imagine trying to raise a family when enemy missiles, with ever-increasing range and lethality, are closing in from the south and from the north, and when a nation that openly wishes your family’s death achieves the practical capability to cause it. Imagine trying to carry on a business — trying to carry on anything at all. The Iranian strategy, with the enthusiastic support of Hamas and Hezbollah, is to simply make life in Israel untenable for a critical mass of Jews, who will then either go somewhere else (those that have somewhere else to go) or give up the fight. A conventional war of nations and of armies, of the kind that Israel has won repeatedly in its history since 1948, is therefore avoided. Or, at the least, postponed until Israel is much more weakened and demoralized.

It is not an outlandish strategy. It is a very practical one, and it is one that is being pursued with some effect. If you wonder how a people’s confidence and will to fight can be broken down by literally interminable threats and violence, just read Mr. Levy’s column again.

Now, considering that Hamas’s missiles are part of an overall strategy for the total destruction of Israel, one has to ask the question: What is a “proportional response” to those who are attempting to destroy your country?

A response reflecting a natural will to live and to fight would be a response which defeats that enemy. The Israelis in the south need to be assured that their nation has the capability of defending them from these attacks, or else they simply have no reason to stay. The Israelis in the north are surely watching, and all Israelis are watching — even those who, like Mr. Levy, seem to have already given up the will to fight.

Though his use of the term “neighborhood bully” in his column seems to echo Bob Dylan’s song (from his album Infidels), I myself would guess that Mr. Levy has never heard Dylan’s Neighborhood Bully. In reality, it is Dylan’s song that is actually a response — albeit 25 years ahead of schedule — to Mr. Levy’s column, and to similar sentiments with which Israelis (uniquely among nations of the earth) need to contend day after day and year after year. Running out the clock, time standing still. It sure is a funny thing.

…

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

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