If you think there is any cognitive dissonance here, you’re wrong. My position is simply that Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself from Hamas. That doesn’t mean they get to kill people willy-nilly, that would make them no different from Hamas. You don’t seem to understand that. If Hamas wants to limit civilian casualties in the war that they started, they’re more than free to either stop putting soldiers and materiel in hospitals and schools, or simply surrender. This crisis is self-manufactured.

And again, you are misunderstanding what an execution is. If Israel actually was on a genocidal rampage (like Hamas wants to do), then Gaza would have been nothing but a bloodstain months ago. There would have been zero humanitarian aid reaching Gaza. You stated in an answer to one of my questions that it would be acceptable for Ukraine to fire at soldiers who are using civilians as human shields as long as the goal wasn’t to kill those civilians. And I would agree. Ukraine has as much a right to exist and defend itself from Russia as Israel has a right to exist and defend itself from Hamas. But when it comes to the situation in Gaza, you suddenly change your mind. The situation is the same - there’s a ratio of 3-4:1 civilians to Hamas soldiers killed - but the main difference is where it’s happening. Yes, it’s tragic every time a civilian dies. I agree with you wholeheartedly there. But that doesn’t mean throwing them up like a smokescreen makes Hamas immune to return fire in the war that they started.

No, actually, I am not okay with governments lying about their motives for a war. That’s one reason I despise Russia. But again, if Israel’s goal was to simply wipe out the Gaza strip, everyone there would have been turned to paste months ago. Israel is suspected to have nukes, after all. Instead, they have been warning people ahead of their strikes, and those people died because Hamas refused to evacuate them so they could use them as propaganda pawns in the war that they started.

But why can’t you put a precise number? For one, you can’t value every soldier’s life the exact same way. A guy with an RPG and a stash of a hundred rockets blowing up everything he sees needs to be removed much more swiftly than some dude in the rear lines who mostly just stands around. As another example, taking down a military commander who is ordering the civilians to endure the bombing that Hamas brought upon them would bring the war closer to an end than devoting the same resources to killing said dude standing around doing guard duty. If a hundred civilians have to die in an operation (because Hamas is using them as pawns in the war that they started), then it makes far more sense for the operation to kill Rocket Man or Major Major Major Major than Mr. Guard Duty. Your question is comparing apples to oranges. Additionally, I don’t question the raw casualty counts that the Gaza Health Ministry puts out, I question the accuracy of their estimates of civilians vs. soldiers killed. As they are under the jurisdiction of Hamas, they have every incentive to manipulate those numbers in particular.

We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Again, this goes back to one of the questions I asked you. You stated that it would be acceptable to kill the gunmen before they started shooting innocent people, and then bent over backwards to paint the situation in as much of an anti-Israel light as possible like you don’t actually believe what you just said. If given the opportunity, Hamas will repeat October 7th. Israel should absolutely fortify the border and load up the Iron Dome to prevent this - and confront the military that’s on their doorstep.

Ultimately, this is an exploitable crisis for (what went ignored in your post) Bibi to escape active criminal charges as he maintains immunity in his position of power. Sure, arrest Bibi for his part in radicalizing Palestine and whatever needless casualties are happening. Netanyahu too. But they aren’t the only ones exploiting this crisis.

At this point, a nuke is uncalled for. I mean why not? Because the simple fact is the situation isn’t that severe yet. Nobody opposing Israel at the moment - Gaza, Hamas, whoever you want to call out - has a nuke. That would be an imminent and existential threat to Israel which would need to be addressed immediately. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only situation in which nukes are permissible with the risk of MAD. But right now, Hamas has an opportunity to surrender every single day. This crisis could end at any moment, if Hamas simply gave up the war that they started. Your statements imply that it’s okay for Israel to get attacked indiscriminately as long as seemingly fewer civilians are killed in the process.

That’s quite not happening when they’re bombing these densely-populated buildings, though. You’re right, they’re using rockets instead. And they’re in positions that can’t be attacked directly, as I already said. And if some malfunction or sabotage happens to the Iron Dome, as unlikely as that might be, all those missile bases will suddenly become a much more serious threat. In that case, how will the people who cried that these installations should never have been targeted react as rockets fall into Israeli territory en masse for the first time in years? And even if that doesn’t happen, Israel still only reports a success rate of 90% for the Iron Dome while they’ve been sitting patiently as Hamas has launched tens of thousands of missiles at them over not just this war, but longer than a decade. Resting on your laurels is a sure way to fail eventually.

That does nothing in terms of permitting Hamas to regroup. It just ensures that civilians are radicalized in greater numbers. Allowing their attacks to continue unimpeded will only embolden Hamas. If lying down and taking it was a feasible strategy, intelligence failures aside, then October 7th wouldn’t have happened because Hamas wouldn’t have wanted to attack.

Nobody said anything about, “Let jews die.” Only one component of your answer actually deals with the imminent problem of rockets raining down on Israel, and it’s just to sit there and take it. No other nation on Earth would be expected to sit around and let their genocidal neighbors indiscriminately launch explosives at their cities, regardless of the defenses in place.

Hamas didn’t attack by tunnels. There are also incredibly easy methods of detecting underground tunnel networks via sonar systems that are already employed around the world. Are you talking about ground-penetrating radar? Because this source says that its maximum depth is around 30 meters and could be as low as 4 feet, while [Hamas routinely digs their tunnels at depths of 50 meters.(https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-TUNNELS/gkvldmzorvb/) Maybe it would be feasible if they buried the detector element deep within the soil (which isn’t something I’m sure is possible), but based on this info, it isn’t the guaranteed solution you imply it is.

Israel hasn’t even been able to support a 2 state solution, after all. If this were true, Gaza and the West Bank would not exist. They would have been wiped out. Israel has been extremely effective in war ever since the 1950s.