As a Jewish Canadian I deeply respect the author's honesty and even more deeply touched by his support of Israel. Such support has always been important to me, even in my youth, when most of my friends (and first husband) were not Jewish. But I admit that back then, I didn't feel as "Jewish" as I do today. This was during the 1970s....when Israel was still portrayed by mainstream media as the heroes and the Arabs who constantly attacked her (and lost) were portrayed as the villains. Enter the 1980s.....a new husband: this time an Israeli Canadian 16 years my senior with all the “Israeli” attributes the author describes and more. I learned how he felt growing up in a kibbutz and fighting in the fledgling IDF. I held him close when he woke up in a sweat from the nightmares of battle. Nightmares that never left him until the day he died. But while he lived I was not feeling like the "lone Jew". Not even after the repeated Palestinian Intifadas and the importation to Canada of millions of Jew-hating Muslims. Not even after I studied cultural Marxism during the late 1990s and learned about what the author called "the cancerous conjoining of the Western Left with Islamic fundamentalism - the so-called “Red-Green” alliance". Then, enter Oct 7, 2023.....I am widowed, almost 70, getting around in a wheelchair and living in a mostly Jewish neighbourhood. After the numerous threats from Hamas and other Islamist groups "to kill Jews everywhere", I get robo-calls and emails from Jewish organizations and our mayor warning everyone to “be vigilant". I stop visiting a certain shopping mall because of its security weaknesses (which I reported to our mayor). I write letters to politicians, organizations and even the Pope who, essentially, wants Israel to surrender to Hamas by calling for a ceasefire. I wonder if the many Arab drivers employed by the disability transport service that I use are plotting my demise. But then I brush off the fear. I remember my late husband's courage. I pray to the G-d I tended to ignore when I was young. I listen to the prayerful songs at the Orthodox synagogue two streets away and read the psalms of David; "connecting" with David's agonies and cries to G-d as a way to release the rage I have never experienced so intensely in my life. Yes, I am grateful for the article from this supportive non-Jewish person. It helps to know that we Jews do have some friends. But we are strong and more united than before Oct 7. We have a country that will take us even if every Western country becomes fully controlled by the Islamophilic Left, G-d forbid. So, none of us is really alone. And if you're non Jewish and love Israel.....neither are you.
I have friends who are Pro-Palestinian and very much want a ceasefire. They condemn Israel for cutting off essential services to Gazans, and the bombing raids. Some of these people are "peace activists" who say killing is never justified. I ask them, how do you think Israel should have responded to the killing of 1400 of its citizens? This was basically a massacre, a lot of it captured on the Go Pro cameras worn by the Hamas invaders, who cheered "God Is Great" as they mowed people down at a music festival for peace. I get crickets. Nobody can give me an answer, except "it's all a result of Israeli aggression," in other words, they blame the victim. But they don't answer my question. They don't have any answers as to what the victim's response should be.
That is because Arabs have rewritten history and pass it off as truth, which the Islamophilic Leftist media swallows. But for anyone who actually reads history - history not recorded by Jews - they understand the truth about the Jews being indigenous to Israel, the events prior to the formation of the modern Israeli state in 1948 and all the events which occurred afterwards. It's all very well documented for those who aren't brainwashed by Islamophilic/woke kool-aid.
I read somewhere in a comment that Israel only controls 10% of the power in Palestine. I think other shades of the truth might be hidden in the situation. The questions the people of Palestine should be asking of their Hamas leaders are why taking care of their needs to live better off has not been important… why not look after building water desalination plants for example…
During WW 2 my father spent 5 years in Egypt and became fluent in Arabic he had a great respect for them but was always saying they can not be trusted they would offer friendship but slit your throat if they had the chance.
My late husband, an Israeli, knew Arabs well and spoke Arabic too. He said the best way to earn their friendship is to prove you are stronger than them because they respect strength; not weakness. He was speaking of Arabs who weren't immersed in Islamo hatred. There are those who are not.
Beautifully written again Anonymed. Such a difficult subject. I agree 100% there is no moral ambiguity here about who is wrong and who is right.
The challenge in my mind is in calibrating the response. It is clear that the right response isn't none. But it's also clear to me that it is not realistic to talk about "eliminating" Hamas. At best one can "defang" them, degrade their capacity, limit their ability to carry out further atrocities. The problem I have with the talk of "eliminating" them (not your words, but the words of numerous high-level Israeli spokespeople) is that it is unrealistic. What is the endpoint?
The moral issue to me is clear. But the practical problem of deciding on the correct response is an absolute mess of contradictions and competing harm-benefit analyses. What is the approach that will make Israeli's as safe as possible in 5, 10, 20 years from now, knowing that antisemetism is not going away anytime soon? This is a difficult/impossible question to answer with any certainty in the absence of a crystal ball.
The whole discussion could be more productive if people saw the moral question more clearly as a start. I was shocked at how many people started the discussion with "Well, you have to remember that the Jews kind of deserve it...".
I agree that while a military response on Israel’s part is justified, the raging-bull response we’re seeing now is not. For humanitarian reasons, obviously, but also for strategic ones. As you say, Chris, no amount of retaliation is going to “destroy Hamas” (even if it disables Hamas’s capacity and martyrs today’s leaders and fighters). It’s not going to achieve any desired (or desirable) goal, beyond revenge, and is just going to harden world opinion against Israel. Especially opinion in the Arab world. Which was possibly Hamas’s long game: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-hamas-wants-to-lure-israel-into-a-prolonged-and-brutal-conflict/ (Oct. 19).
"Far be it for me to tell Israel how to deal with this impossible situation. I hope they maintain the moral high ground they so clearly hold. But I also hope they win, and win decisively. "
Yes. Beheading children, burning families alive, torturing children and parents together, ... are beyond the pale.
The author writes: “If securing release of Israeli hostages and obtaining Hamas’ unconditional surrender necessitates extraordinary measures, I am hesitant to pretend I know a more moral way forward.” What I know, from a distance, is the ultimate imperative is the return of the hostages and Hamas’ defeat. That this be achieved with regard for Palestinian civilians is Israel’s moral burden, which is made more difficult by the use of Palestinian families as human shields by their own government.
So after October 7, what, they should just carry on as usual with Iron Dome, checkpoints and building walls and fences? Or perhaps to you that is called creating ‘the biggest open air prison’ in the world. No. Hamas needs to be eliminated, in no uncertain terms.
Appreciating your perspective and your willingness to vulnerably lay it all out here, even if under pseudonym (but aren't we all pseudonyms here, really?) However, there is something that is glaringly absent from your perspective, if I may gently point it out: Israelis are not Netanyanhu/IDF and Palestinians are not Hamas. Did it ever occur to you that all of this is going exactly as planned (uh-oh! look out! conspiracy theorist in the house!!)? How the F did the IDF f*ck up as badly as they did on Oct 7? None of our glorious media sources really gets to the heart of that, do they? Why? Because media has but one message: propaganda...and we MUST choose a side. Why else? Because Netanyanhu is too busy fighting a war! He even tweeted it himself that he would answer for the failings of the IDF and assume full accountability........as soon as we root out the evil Hamas, of course. Convenient.
Now, I'm not saying necessarily that this particular conspiracy theory is true. Heavens no! Just wondering why no one seems to care a whiff that the IDF—supposedly the most formidable force on the planet, man for man—failed utterly miserably at defending its citizens that day. Not here to blame victims, of course. We don't go around blaming victims, do we. Nope. Not us good people. But it should be obvious to anyone with a single firing synapse that those who profit from wars are really quite the experts at getting them started. Food for thought.
One other thing: "Make no mistake, Jew-hatred in the Muslim world - be it in Tehran or Toronto - is deeply ingrained. Children drink it with their mother’s milk, after which it is absorbed into their bones." Did you come up with that yourself? Quite the mantra. Chills, dude. Brrrrrrr! As a medical professional, you of course know that's not what mother's milk does. But my! What an effect these words! Little children—babies!—born haters. Hmm. So by this logic, the killing is not going to stop at Hamas, is it? Where should it stop? When all the little Arabic milk-drinkers are dead too? Do you see how this works?
Please try to see beyond the binary story lines you are being offered. You are feeding right into the hands of those who profit from war.
like gender ideology, there are those who are attracted to the social aspect of zionism. they dont realize, nor do they care, that zionism primarily targets and harms marginalized groups to benefit of white males who are not marginalized. gender ideology erases the rights and harms women, kids, gays, people with gender dysphoria and people with other pysch issues. zionism harms the native people of palestine by commiting ethnic cleansing, apartheid and endless harsh collective measures against millions of innocent people whose only crime is being born on a patch of dirt valued by white males and religious nuts.
gender ideology and zionism have collected decades of false natives and false claims to aid in their PR efforts. zionism and gender ideology have created tons of bogus stories of how white males were disadvantaged and then falsely claim it follows they are owed the rights and blood payback of unrelated and disadvantaged groups.
both harm the very people they claim to help. gender ideology harms dysphoric people by tricking them into quack care evidence shows doesnt help. zionism harms jewish people by provoking worldwide outrage at the Holocaust committed by israel which jewish people are blamed for.
irony is lost on zionists and supporters of gender ideology. jewish people were disadvantaged during ww2 when the Nazis blamed them for losing ww1. and now israel falsely blames arabs in a similar way.
The Israel siege of Gaza, which has cut off food, water, electricity and fuel for Palestinian civilians, along with the constant and indiscriminate bombardment which has resulted in the death of an estimated 3,600 Palestinian children and the destruction of massive amounts of housing and related infrastructure. Amnesty International is calling Israel's actions a war crime and a crime against humanity and they are absolutely right. Punishing members of a group for the actions of individuals is known as, "Collective Punishment" and is considered a war crime prohibited by Common Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 6 of the Additional Protocol II. Collective punishment was a tactic commonly employed by Nazi Germany most notably remembered by the 1941 Kragujevac massacre when 2300 civilians were murdered as retaliation for 10 German soldiers killed by Yugoslav Partisans in Nazi-occupied Serbia. Is what is happening in Gaza anything so different. Predictably, we have yet to see the worst. A recently leaked Israeli government 'concept paper' examined the possibility of relocating the Palestinian population to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Forced relocations is also considered a war crime under Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV which states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”
I know of no one who does not sympathize for what happened to the Jews during WW 11 and applaud their efforts for a homeland, but it shouldn't occur at the expense of another ethnic group. Perhaps Paulo Freire expresses this best when he says, "The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become the oppressors".
“Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.”
What specifically should Israel have done in this situation..to get back the hostages, to stop the rocket attacks, to find Hamas, who are in tunnels all under Gaza City, who killed 1400 people, mostly civilians.... there is no comparison of this to Kragujevec.
As I have tried to show, civilized countries have established rules for war which prevents reprisals against civilians. Any response to the terrorist attack must be proportionate. Israel has shown itself to be very efficient in counter terrorism missions as demonstrated by the 1976 raid on Entebbe, in Uganda. If their only objective was reprisal, counter terrorism missions could have been used to balance the score quite effectively. But we should both know that is not their end game. They have their eye on the annexation of Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinians to the Sinai.
How can you say that's their endgame when they have repeatedly offered a two-state solution and even pulled out of Gaza, only to be soundly rejected by Palestinian authorities? But even if it were true, is it not a rational response to what is explicitly the endgame of Hamas, the total destruction of Israel and death to all Jews everywhere and anywhere?
This is a completely different situation than 1976. That was not an invasion, it was an airplane hijacking and passenger hostage taking. Now, no-one knows where the two hundred plus hostages are located. Hamas are still firing rockets into Israel. 1400 people were killed, and many more injured by the Hamas attack. Hamas operate out of tunnels beneath the ground, that's not the same as rescuing hijacked tourists from an airport, where everything is visible, and the resistance is not a well equipped army with twenty five thousand soldiers, but a few hijackers. You say civilized countries have established rules for war. However, nobody follows them when it's a war situation. For example, the U. S. response to 9-11, the response of the Syrian government in its civil war, the Ukranian response to the Russian invasion, and Russia's actions there, did not follow any rules, just to name a few examples. Your speculation about the Israeli endgame is possible, but then, my speculation about Hamas and their allies wanting to eliminate Israel has clear evidence, as we see in Hamas' fighting history, and its constitution, as well as the statements of their allies Hezbollah and Isis, and their allies in Canada, as they sing the chant "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free." at various protests.
As a Jewish Canadian I deeply respect the author's honesty and even more deeply touched by his support of Israel. Such support has always been important to me, even in my youth, when most of my friends (and first husband) were not Jewish. But I admit that back then, I didn't feel as "Jewish" as I do today. This was during the 1970s....when Israel was still portrayed by mainstream media as the heroes and the Arabs who constantly attacked her (and lost) were portrayed as the villains. Enter the 1980s.....a new husband: this time an Israeli Canadian 16 years my senior with all the “Israeli” attributes the author describes and more. I learned how he felt growing up in a kibbutz and fighting in the fledgling IDF. I held him close when he woke up in a sweat from the nightmares of battle. Nightmares that never left him until the day he died. But while he lived I was not feeling like the "lone Jew". Not even after the repeated Palestinian Intifadas and the importation to Canada of millions of Jew-hating Muslims. Not even after I studied cultural Marxism during the late 1990s and learned about what the author called "the cancerous conjoining of the Western Left with Islamic fundamentalism - the so-called “Red-Green” alliance". Then, enter Oct 7, 2023.....I am widowed, almost 70, getting around in a wheelchair and living in a mostly Jewish neighbourhood. After the numerous threats from Hamas and other Islamist groups "to kill Jews everywhere", I get robo-calls and emails from Jewish organizations and our mayor warning everyone to “be vigilant". I stop visiting a certain shopping mall because of its security weaknesses (which I reported to our mayor). I write letters to politicians, organizations and even the Pope who, essentially, wants Israel to surrender to Hamas by calling for a ceasefire. I wonder if the many Arab drivers employed by the disability transport service that I use are plotting my demise. But then I brush off the fear. I remember my late husband's courage. I pray to the G-d I tended to ignore when I was young. I listen to the prayerful songs at the Orthodox synagogue two streets away and read the psalms of David; "connecting" with David's agonies and cries to G-d as a way to release the rage I have never experienced so intensely in my life. Yes, I am grateful for the article from this supportive non-Jewish person. It helps to know that we Jews do have some friends. But we are strong and more united than before Oct 7. We have a country that will take us even if every Western country becomes fully controlled by the Islamophilic Left, G-d forbid. So, none of us is really alone. And if you're non Jewish and love Israel.....neither are you.
I have friends who are Pro-Palestinian and very much want a ceasefire. They condemn Israel for cutting off essential services to Gazans, and the bombing raids. Some of these people are "peace activists" who say killing is never justified. I ask them, how do you think Israel should have responded to the killing of 1400 of its citizens? This was basically a massacre, a lot of it captured on the Go Pro cameras worn by the Hamas invaders, who cheered "God Is Great" as they mowed people down at a music festival for peace. I get crickets. Nobody can give me an answer, except "it's all a result of Israeli aggression," in other words, they blame the victim. But they don't answer my question. They don't have any answers as to what the victim's response should be.
That is because Arabs have rewritten history and pass it off as truth, which the Islamophilic Leftist media swallows. But for anyone who actually reads history - history not recorded by Jews - they understand the truth about the Jews being indigenous to Israel, the events prior to the formation of the modern Israeli state in 1948 and all the events which occurred afterwards. It's all very well documented for those who aren't brainwashed by Islamophilic/woke kool-aid.
I read somewhere in a comment that Israel only controls 10% of the power in Palestine. I think other shades of the truth might be hidden in the situation. The questions the people of Palestine should be asking of their Hamas leaders are why taking care of their needs to live better off has not been important… why not look after building water desalination plants for example…
During WW 2 my father spent 5 years in Egypt and became fluent in Arabic he had a great respect for them but was always saying they can not be trusted they would offer friendship but slit your throat if they had the chance.
My late husband, an Israeli, knew Arabs well and spoke Arabic too. He said the best way to earn their friendship is to prove you are stronger than them because they respect strength; not weakness. He was speaking of Arabs who weren't immersed in Islamo hatred. There are those who are not.
Ditto for my father. Interesting hey?
Beautifully written again Anonymed. Such a difficult subject. I agree 100% there is no moral ambiguity here about who is wrong and who is right.
The challenge in my mind is in calibrating the response. It is clear that the right response isn't none. But it's also clear to me that it is not realistic to talk about "eliminating" Hamas. At best one can "defang" them, degrade their capacity, limit their ability to carry out further atrocities. The problem I have with the talk of "eliminating" them (not your words, but the words of numerous high-level Israeli spokespeople) is that it is unrealistic. What is the endpoint?
The moral issue to me is clear. But the practical problem of deciding on the correct response is an absolute mess of contradictions and competing harm-benefit analyses. What is the approach that will make Israeli's as safe as possible in 5, 10, 20 years from now, knowing that antisemetism is not going away anytime soon? This is a difficult/impossible question to answer with any certainty in the absence of a crystal ball.
The whole discussion could be more productive if people saw the moral question more clearly as a start. I was shocked at how many people started the discussion with "Well, you have to remember that the Jews kind of deserve it...".
I agree that while a military response on Israel’s part is justified, the raging-bull response we’re seeing now is not. For humanitarian reasons, obviously, but also for strategic ones. As you say, Chris, no amount of retaliation is going to “destroy Hamas” (even if it disables Hamas’s capacity and martyrs today’s leaders and fighters). It’s not going to achieve any desired (or desirable) goal, beyond revenge, and is just going to harden world opinion against Israel. Especially opinion in the Arab world. Which was possibly Hamas’s long game: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-hamas-wants-to-lure-israel-into-a-prolonged-and-brutal-conflict/ (Oct. 19).
"Far be it for me to tell Israel how to deal with this impossible situation. I hope they maintain the moral high ground they so clearly hold. But I also hope they win, and win decisively. "
Yes. Beheading children, burning families alive, torturing children and parents together, ... are beyond the pale.
Indeed. The moral high-ground is looking a little sewagy these days.
A brilliant read!
I love your writing. Especially, here, all your anecdotes about your life experiences before med school. I can relate to a lot of them.
The author writes: “If securing release of Israeli hostages and obtaining Hamas’ unconditional surrender necessitates extraordinary measures, I am hesitant to pretend I know a more moral way forward.” What I know, from a distance, is the ultimate imperative is the return of the hostages and Hamas’ defeat. That this be achieved with regard for Palestinian civilians is Israel’s moral burden, which is made more difficult by the use of Palestinian families as human shields by their own government.
Thank you for this. I know what side I am on.
“Sooner or later...one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American
Thank you!
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Wokeism is a lie. Covid is a lie. Israel is a lie. I'm sorry you can't see them.
Two out of three ain’t good.
Israel is not defending anymire but brutaly invading. I was reading you with interest but i am out now.
So after October 7, what, they should just carry on as usual with Iron Dome, checkpoints and building walls and fences? Or perhaps to you that is called creating ‘the biggest open air prison’ in the world. No. Hamas needs to be eliminated, in no uncertain terms.
Specifically.....How do you think Israel should have responded to the Hamas invasion and massacre of 1400 of its citizens?
Appreciating your perspective and your willingness to vulnerably lay it all out here, even if under pseudonym (but aren't we all pseudonyms here, really?) However, there is something that is glaringly absent from your perspective, if I may gently point it out: Israelis are not Netanyanhu/IDF and Palestinians are not Hamas. Did it ever occur to you that all of this is going exactly as planned (uh-oh! look out! conspiracy theorist in the house!!)? How the F did the IDF f*ck up as badly as they did on Oct 7? None of our glorious media sources really gets to the heart of that, do they? Why? Because media has but one message: propaganda...and we MUST choose a side. Why else? Because Netanyanhu is too busy fighting a war! He even tweeted it himself that he would answer for the failings of the IDF and assume full accountability........as soon as we root out the evil Hamas, of course. Convenient.
Now, I'm not saying necessarily that this particular conspiracy theory is true. Heavens no! Just wondering why no one seems to care a whiff that the IDF—supposedly the most formidable force on the planet, man for man—failed utterly miserably at defending its citizens that day. Not here to blame victims, of course. We don't go around blaming victims, do we. Nope. Not us good people. But it should be obvious to anyone with a single firing synapse that those who profit from wars are really quite the experts at getting them started. Food for thought.
One other thing: "Make no mistake, Jew-hatred in the Muslim world - be it in Tehran or Toronto - is deeply ingrained. Children drink it with their mother’s milk, after which it is absorbed into their bones." Did you come up with that yourself? Quite the mantra. Chills, dude. Brrrrrrr! As a medical professional, you of course know that's not what mother's milk does. But my! What an effect these words! Little children—babies!—born haters. Hmm. So by this logic, the killing is not going to stop at Hamas, is it? Where should it stop? When all the little Arabic milk-drinkers are dead too? Do you see how this works?
Please try to see beyond the binary story lines you are being offered. You are feeding right into the hands of those who profit from war.
like gender ideology, there are those who are attracted to the social aspect of zionism. they dont realize, nor do they care, that zionism primarily targets and harms marginalized groups to benefit of white males who are not marginalized. gender ideology erases the rights and harms women, kids, gays, people with gender dysphoria and people with other pysch issues. zionism harms the native people of palestine by commiting ethnic cleansing, apartheid and endless harsh collective measures against millions of innocent people whose only crime is being born on a patch of dirt valued by white males and religious nuts.
gender ideology and zionism have collected decades of false natives and false claims to aid in their PR efforts. zionism and gender ideology have created tons of bogus stories of how white males were disadvantaged and then falsely claim it follows they are owed the rights and blood payback of unrelated and disadvantaged groups.
both harm the very people they claim to help. gender ideology harms dysphoric people by tricking them into quack care evidence shows doesnt help. zionism harms jewish people by provoking worldwide outrage at the Holocaust committed by israel which jewish people are blamed for.
irony is lost on zionists and supporters of gender ideology. jewish people were disadvantaged during ww2 when the Nazis blamed them for losing ww1. and now israel falsely blames arabs in a similar way.
The Israel siege of Gaza, which has cut off food, water, electricity and fuel for Palestinian civilians, along with the constant and indiscriminate bombardment which has resulted in the death of an estimated 3,600 Palestinian children and the destruction of massive amounts of housing and related infrastructure. Amnesty International is calling Israel's actions a war crime and a crime against humanity and they are absolutely right. Punishing members of a group for the actions of individuals is known as, "Collective Punishment" and is considered a war crime prohibited by Common Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 6 of the Additional Protocol II. Collective punishment was a tactic commonly employed by Nazi Germany most notably remembered by the 1941 Kragujevac massacre when 2300 civilians were murdered as retaliation for 10 German soldiers killed by Yugoslav Partisans in Nazi-occupied Serbia. Is what is happening in Gaza anything so different. Predictably, we have yet to see the worst. A recently leaked Israeli government 'concept paper' examined the possibility of relocating the Palestinian population to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Forced relocations is also considered a war crime under Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV which states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”
I know of no one who does not sympathize for what happened to the Jews during WW 11 and applaud their efforts for a homeland, but it shouldn't occur at the expense of another ethnic group. Perhaps Paulo Freire expresses this best when he says, "The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become the oppressors".
“Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.”
― Malcolm X
What specifically should Israel have done in this situation..to get back the hostages, to stop the rocket attacks, to find Hamas, who are in tunnels all under Gaza City, who killed 1400 people, mostly civilians.... there is no comparison of this to Kragujevec.
As I have tried to show, civilized countries have established rules for war which prevents reprisals against civilians. Any response to the terrorist attack must be proportionate. Israel has shown itself to be very efficient in counter terrorism missions as demonstrated by the 1976 raid on Entebbe, in Uganda. If their only objective was reprisal, counter terrorism missions could have been used to balance the score quite effectively. But we should both know that is not their end game. They have their eye on the annexation of Gaza and the expulsion of the Palestinians to the Sinai.
How can you say that's their endgame when they have repeatedly offered a two-state solution and even pulled out of Gaza, only to be soundly rejected by Palestinian authorities? But even if it were true, is it not a rational response to what is explicitly the endgame of Hamas, the total destruction of Israel and death to all Jews everywhere and anywhere?
This is a completely different situation than 1976. That was not an invasion, it was an airplane hijacking and passenger hostage taking. Now, no-one knows where the two hundred plus hostages are located. Hamas are still firing rockets into Israel. 1400 people were killed, and many more injured by the Hamas attack. Hamas operate out of tunnels beneath the ground, that's not the same as rescuing hijacked tourists from an airport, where everything is visible, and the resistance is not a well equipped army with twenty five thousand soldiers, but a few hijackers. You say civilized countries have established rules for war. However, nobody follows them when it's a war situation. For example, the U. S. response to 9-11, the response of the Syrian government in its civil war, the Ukranian response to the Russian invasion, and Russia's actions there, did not follow any rules, just to name a few examples. Your speculation about the Israeli endgame is possible, but then, my speculation about Hamas and their allies wanting to eliminate Israel has clear evidence, as we see in Hamas' fighting history, and its constitution, as well as the statements of their allies Hezbollah and Isis, and their allies in Canada, as they sing the chant "From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free." at various protests.