Deal Hudson Fails to Subscribe to the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the State of Israel and its Preservation from all sin both Original and Actual<\/a><\/p>\n This <\/a>more or less summarizes my puzzlement about the radical disconnect between our political elites and the people they represent:<\/p>\n Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party\u2019s voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party\u2019s leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Meanwhile, as the Church observes the World Day of Peace<\/a>, here in the US, guys like Victor Davis Hanson urge us to embrace their pagan approach to war and ignore the Just War criterion of proportionality as a \u201cphoney doctrine<\/a>\u201d since, well, it would call into grave question the approach Israel is taking.<\/p>\n Daniel<\/a> Larison<\/a> pretty much has the number of people like Hanson and the Salvation Through Leviathan by Any Means Necessary Crowd:<\/p>\n Faced with the possibility that there are Israeli actions in Gaza that actually are excessive and disproportionate, this element of just war theory is simply scrapped or dismissed as inappropriate to asymmetric warfare by defenders of those actions. As I remarked in 2006, \u201cQuickly vanishing is the trope of Israel\u2019s tremendous restraint. The new idea is the virtue of her disproportionate violence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n