(Non) Equality

Jonathan Chait will, I suspect, be getting a huge dose of Lefty Love™ over this little piece in TNR's The Plank:

At Tapped, Matt Yglesias writes that Hezbollah's rocket strikes, as compared with Israel's bombing of Lebanon, are "equally indefensible." Equally? Hezbollah began the crisis with an act of war that included a cross-border incursion and a kidnapping. Israel retaliated by attacking the parts of Lebanon's infrastructure that could be used to spirit the kidnapped soldiers out of the country, and followed it up by trying to destroy Hezbollah's artillery. In so doing they made every effort to minimize civilian casualties, including dropping leaflets warning residents to leave the targetted areas. Hezbollah has been lobbing rockets in the general direction of Israeli cities with no intent other than to kill civilians.

Which is the point I have been making all along. However, Mr. Chait, as I can attest from some of my commenters here, you are dealing with the Clue Proof™ among those who cannot, or will not, see Israel's actions as anything but unacceptable.

Hezbollah hides it's rockets inside civilian homes, using the residents as human shields. That is a war crime. Hezbollah launches rockets against civilian targets. That is a war crime. When Israel hits the rocket stores, the places they are hidden are legitimate targets because the Hezbollah war crime made them so.

But that will not make a bit of difference to the amount of abuse Mr. Chait is in for.