While I understand the “keep shooting until they give up” sentiments, I think this course is most unlikely to produce a lasting peace.

Reason is that Israel can’t realistically kill *all* male residents of Gaza (and of course does not want to), so at some point, when the Israeli troops eventually withdraw, what are the chances that no young man who has lost a parent or sibling will get it into his head to lob another homemade rocket? You all know the probability is 1.0.

In that event, all the current carnage has accomplished what, exactly? Okay, it’s shown the Gazans that there’s a huge cost to lobbing rockets at Israel. This is certainly something Hamas and company needed to learn. But is there not a more effective, less costly way to make that point?

One of the comments above proposed that in the future, for every rocket fired at Israel, the Israelis should return twenty. But that is overkill. I suspect that all Israel needs to do is return one-for-one, provided it announces this policy publicly. Moreover, Israel can afford to broadcast a warning to all Gaza residents of exactly when and where (within a one-mile square) their counterfire will land. After all, the purpose of shooting back isn’t to kill people, it’s to *deter them*.

Obviously killing someone is the ultimate deterrence to *them*, but unless there’s only one violent actor on the other side, does anyone believe killing one Gazan will deter the *others*? If you believe that, then by what mechanism? Fear of death? Haven’t we heard somewhere that a huge fraction of Muslims are convinced that dying for the cause is the ultimate positive outcome?

So if the current invasion is virtually certain to change *nothing* in the long term, what’s my suggestion instead? As mentioned above, go to a shell-for-shell response. I know this sounds like capitulation, but it’s clearly not that. Instead it would directly link cause-and-effect for Gazans. You don’t shoot, we won’t shoot, and vice-versa.

If bringing in the tanks and killing a thousand or so would make Hamas stop firing rockets at Israeli towns, one could plausibly argue that invading would be worthwhile. But it won’t stop the rockets. Worse yet, the death of even a few innocents can’t help but swell the ranks of young men eager to fight back at any cost.

Let me say that I don’t blame Israel for saying, in effect, enough is enough. I’m simply trying to show that sometimes the reflexive response doesn’t do what you might expect, and that effective solutions are sometimes counterintuitive.

What’s that old saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome?