“What Hezbollah has done is kidnap Israeli soldiers and rain rockets and mortar shells on innocent Israeli civilians. What Israel has done in response is act in self-defense. And I don’t quite know what the argument about proportionate force means here. Is Israel entitled only to kidnap two Hezbollah operatives and fire a couple of rockets aimlessly into Lebanon?

Bolton bristled at last week’s suggestion from Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, that Israeli leaders could be charged with war crimes.

“You know, in America, prosecutors are not supposed to threaten people in public based on press reports,” said Bolton, a graduate of Yale Law School. “I would just say as one lawyer to another, that — to Mrs. Arbour, that she should consider her professional ethics and responsibilities very carefully here before threatening criminal charges based on press accounts.”