I must say, I do like the way the Israelis don't fvck about.

[Burney]

Boys with wire cutters, dude. THis is hardly Rorke's Drift.

I think you are missing, in classic Don Pacifico style, the notion of a proportionate response. It is what responsible, mature nations do.

We have moved beyond the era of Lord Palmerston. Apart from the Falklands, obviously.

Yes. Boys sent there to breach the defence in the cynical hope that their youth would either a/ stop the soldiers shooting them or b/ make for good publicity if they did get shot.

Of course, had they simply been allowed to breach the defences, the defensive position would have been fatally undermined and it is perfectly possible for large numbers prepared to take heavy casualties to swarm smaller groups of soldiers - however heavily armed - and to kill them (see Mogadishu 1993 for evidence). The Israelis - correctly - were not prepared to risk that happening.