Last week I attended the LJCC Q and A session with William Hague. The shadow foreign secretary stuck me as being a highly articulate, witty and affable individual with an interesting range of views on the Middle East conflicts. During the session, I asked him what was meant by describing Israel's actions against Hamas and Hezbollah as 'disproportionate.'
He answered by saying that he had used that term during the 2006 conflict with Lebanon though he had not used it during Operation Cast lead. The charge of disproportionality, he suggested, was related to his belief that Israel's actions would have a negative effect on the government of Fouad Siniora while he doubted whether the war would leave Israel in a stronger position.
What was interesting was the clanger he then made. Why did he not use the term 'disproportionate' in 2009? His answer was that at the time 'Israel was under rocket bombardment' from the terrorists of Hamas and the charge of disproportionality would not have been a fair one to make. But Israel was under fire in 2006 as well, even more so than in 2009.
Between 300,000 and 500,000 Israelis in the North were forced to flee South to avoid rocket attacks from Lebanon in an enormous and hasty national exodus. If anything, this made the full scale Israeli war against Hezbollah far more justifiable than Mr. Hague chose to make out. Perhaps the shadow foreign secretary had a poor memory of events in 2006 or perhaps he was being a tad disingenuous in his explanation. In any case, his use of the word disproportionate still needs clarification.