Israeli President Netanyahu has attempted to maintain American support for Israel’s response to Hamas by relating what happened on October 7 to key events in American history.

For example, during Netanyahu’s October 18 meeting with US President Joe Biden he said the 1,400 Israelis murdered would be equivalent to 50,000 Americans dying on 9/11.

While Israel, like any other nation, implicitly has a right to defend itself, a key question is whether its response has been proportional to the initial attack launched by Hamas. One way to measure the proportionality of Israel’s response is to compare the deaths each group has suffered using common terms. This can be done by applying the same proportional calculation Israel has used to the deaths of civilian Palestinians.

According to this calculation, the 10,000 Gazans thus far killed in Israel’s response is proportional to 1.75 Americans being killed.

This comparison — Israel’s equivalent of 50,000 Americans killed to Gaza’s equivalent of 1.75 million Americans killed — is one measure that can be used to determine how proportional Israel’s response has been.