As all those Lebanese civilians start streaming back to their wrecked homes, the international media is there to record the scenes of destruction and the former inhabitants' poignant wailings as they show their (civilian) weapons and vow murderous revenge.  They are, for the most part, absent when Israeli civilians return to their wrecked homes with vows of rebuilding.

Ah yes, another case of disproportionality.  A few weeks ago, Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, reminded a British interviewer of proportion in defense, placing the whole subject in total proportion. 
 
Questioned, yet again about Israel's careful targeting of terrorist hideouts and neighborhoods, many deliberately located in civilian neighborhoods which did cause death and destruction, Netanyahu reminded the interviewer of some British history.

"Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima.

Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children. 

Ah yes, British understated disproportion.

Ethel C. Fenig    8 25 06