Yes I certainly understand the human cost concerns. War is a very tragic thing. It's probably one of the worst undertakings humanity does and has done throughout history. Sometimes it is necessary. And there is a very great cost when it occurs in the death and destruction.
War is tragic and unlike plagues, pandemics, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, and volcanic eruptions, war is the specific result of human action. War is an un-natural disaster. War has many costs, and many of them are human costs, not simply death and destruction mainly born by those who do not make the decisions, but also the opportunity costs of the things not done. War also makes profits for many, perhaps the victor, perhaps employment, or untold financial gain on the part of those who make and supply weapons and ammunition.
But if you start a war then you'd better be prepared for the other side to respond.
When you make an argument, one of the things that is important is where you choose to begin. If you take the starting point as the 7th of October 2023 you will conclude, logically and correctly as you have done. The flaw in this is of course that the argument starts without assessing what led to the events of that date. No doubt someone should have said at the time
don't poke the bear! In reality, it was a very low-tech assault on a target with a lot of high-tech (super expensive) defence systems. I don't think the event was justifiable, I don't think it was acceptable, and I don't think it was in the interests of either Israel or Palestine. I strongly suspect that Hamas was played by third-party actors as a useful idiot - and those actors may well in in Iran.
Yet whilst I deplore the brutal nature of what happened, one has to ask if the Palestinians have a just cause. Around 1900 the Palestinians accounted for 94% of the population of the region. In the wake of the rise of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century (the late 1800s) there was a rise in Jewish migration to the area. Lord Balfour (whose painting was slashed recently at Cambridge University) was responsible for some duplicitous dealing with Lawrence of Arabia and King Faisal which led to the Balfour Declaration marking Britain's commitment to the establishment of a Jewish State without regard to the people who were living there. The practice of ignoring the Palestinian people's existence has continued apace, including the 1948 establishment of the Jewish State, and the 1967
(link here) which quite simply fails to mention the Palestinians at all. So if you start the argument there, you may well reach a different conclusion, logically and correctly.
Ultimately you have to start somewhere. If you start with the children of Noah, and specifically Shem, you might conclude that this is a family argument where the children don't want to play nicely and share things as nice children ought properly to do.
Genesis 17:8 is another place to begin "And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God." and many argue that this makes Israel's case, save that the Gaza Strip was not part of the land of Canaan, but rather Philistia - home of the Philistines.
But at this point they don't seem willing to finish what Hamas started. That is a mistake. I would say at the point Hamas won't be ultimately defeated until the tunnels are taken and destroyed.
I am not sure of the argument here. Israel and Israeli intelligence almost certainly know where most if not all the tunnels are. To that end Israeli Military have developed the Sponge Bomb which they have deployed effectively when required. I am left feeling that this is a bit of a PR BlackBox that Israel keeps tapping on because it seems good, and no one can see it.
This war may well be won or lost on the streets of Washington and Tel Aviv. The problem is, as I noted on observer remarking the other day, the world has moved from a post-war world to a pre-war world, and I regard that as a matter of great concern.
