Shoes and Other Weapons

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In 1986, an American minister and author named Robert Fulghum wrote a best seller called All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.  I never read the book because I actually attended kindergarten myself and had presumably learned those things.  If recollection serves, I principally learned that when the teachers wanted to snack or chat or smoke, they declared a nap time, dimmed the lights, had us drag out our mats, and left us lying on the ground in darkness like so many battle casualties.

[If there is anyone in the audience under 40, yes, during the Eisenhower years, the teachers took smoking breaks in school.  We thought that the tobacco leaf was a vegetable.]

I was scrawny and annoying, both at home and at school. As the discerning (or non-blind) among you can tell from the picture that accompanies this article, I have spent much of my adult life overcoming, with great success, the scrawniness.  My long-suffering wife tells me that I have made some limited progress on the irritation front, but I acknowledge that the jury is still out.  However, I take it as a good sign that people no longer feel compelled by my behavior or words to attack me physically.

That was not always the case in my childhood.  Regrettably, when I was a child growing up in Newark, New Jersey (formerly a Jewish population center; now an airport), “annoying and scrawny,” especially when accompanied by sarcasm, tended to provoke violence.  So, perforce, I became acquainted with the elements of child warfare: punching, shoving, scratching, kicking, biting, pulling hair, and calling names.

I also became familiar with the need, a posteriori, to justify one’s behavior in combat to the parents and teachers who would sit in judgment after hostilities had ceased.

“He started it” was an acceptable explanation only if one had not used undue force in response, not employed unconventional or asymmetrical weapons (biting, scratching, name calling more egregious than “stupid-face,” and hair pulling), and not shed blood. Otherwise the aggressor would escape punishment, or both parties would be held responsible.  

Being beaten up was unpleasant, but there were consolations.  My tormentors usually got punished or admonished, which was edifying.  I learned to crumple in a heap on the floor and cry much sooner than was actually necessary, so they often just took the early, easy victory and stopped pummeling me. And, eventually, I hit upon a device that would serve both as punishment and deterrent.  I became expert at removing my shoes quickly and flinging them at the departing backs and heads of enemy combatants as they strolled victorious away from their conquest.

This required more skill than one might imagine.  If I just struck a glancing blow, the victor would return and finish the job while I was shoeless and, thus, defenseless.  However, if I nailed him with the heel of the shoe in the back of the neck or head, it was he who would go crying and complaining, and it was me who would get punished. “How many times have we told you?  You don’t throw shoes!”

This was my introduction to the concept of proportionality.

The prevailing adult wisdom at the time was that a child’s fists were conventional weapons unlikely to cause serious injury, but that shoes were unduly dangerous, and an escalation.  Who knew what retaliation might be occasioned by an escalation to shoes? Plus you could break a lamp or a window.  Or lose a shoe.  In my view, my fists were inadequate to do enough damage to punish past, or deter future, aggression, so I fought with what I had in order to stay alive.  Self-preservation was the strongest motivation for a 6-year-old; shoes were my nuclear deterrent.  It was an issue tinged with moral ambiguity.

I do not regret my actions.  Well . . . maybe a little.

[I do more solemnly regret the time my opponent was persuaded to apologize and I greeted him with a shoe to the face.  Before Rosh Hashana, I confess my transgression and I beg forgiveness; if the opportunity to hit him, or anyone, with a shoe ever arises again, I will not avail myself of it.]

Which, of course, brings us to Israel and the nations.

To anyone with even half a brain (perhaps I will address a separate argument in the future to the Squad and the various “student for terrorists” groups roaming the campuses, neither of which meets that criterion; kudos to Seth Mandel for terming the Squad an “empty crayon box.”), it should be clear that Israel could not stand idly by while it was being attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah.  It should also be clear that if those attacks had not happened or were no longer threatened, there would be peace.

Given the fact that the October 7 attacks and the promise of additional such attacks constituted an existential threat to the State of Israel and its people, Israel had to respond with sufficient force to punish the culprits, to render future attacks less likely, and to discourage the allies of the terrorists from persisting.  What Israel has done and is doing in Gaza–destroying the tunnels, eliminating the means of making war against it, and neutralizing the leaders of Hamas, who would otherwise never be deterred from their terrorist ways–is necessary and appropriate.

Under the rules of war, that is the meaning of proportionality.  The response does not need to be similar in kind or intensity to the threat or attack.  It needs to be adequate to respond in a manner that accomplishes the goals of the combatant.  That is why nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which resulted in almost immediate surrender and obviated both carpet bombing and invasion of Japan, which would have cost countless lives, were proportional, even if some might consider them excessive, because some other measure (never identified) might have been equally effective.

When Hezbollah, unprovoked, launched hundreds of unguided exploding projectiles at civilians in Northern Israel, causing injuries, death, and massive dislocation, a proportional response is one that stops such lawless and villainous behavior now and in the future.  Would Israel’s critics at the UN and the EU have Israel respond by launching rockets indiscriminately at population centers in Lebanon?

Of course not.  That would not accomplish any military objective.  On the other hand, a highly targeted operation against the terrorists themselves, their leaders, and their munitions, is the most proportional response imaginable.

There is only one explanation for the negative response to Israel’s actions.  It is the word used to describe the practice of holding Israel and Jews to a different standard than is applied to everyone else.  Israel may and should not allow its responses to be shaped or influenced by anti-Semites or anti-Semitism.

The world should look in its metaphorical mirror and imagine itself in Israel’s place.  I believe that if justice and moral discernment ever prevail, the words and actions of those who lend support and comfort to the terrorists will be viewed as shameful and corrupt. Anyone who has successfully completed kindergarten should be able to appreciate and acknowledge that.

The actions of Israel in defending itself and its people will be justly recognized and commended as appropriate and proper.