I am not sure what is so f***ing confusing about the situation in Israel, especially with the MSM starting to both-sides the fighting. Look, f***tards! Hamas started a war with Israel, and Israel is going to finish it! It’s that f***ing simple. Almost by definition, war necessarily involves innocent civilian casualties. But that is life; that is the human condition. At our core, we are no better than apes, but we have cell phones and guns.
That being said, I don’t think Israel should have bombed Gaza because that is precisely what Hamas expected them to do. No doubt Hamas anticipated a severe response, but now is the time for Israel to act counterintuitively. If they intended to get back hostages, then a long siege would have been better. (Honestly, I don’t think Israel ever planned to save the hostages; the situation has moved beyond that. Thus, hostages will become martyrs to history.) I say, have the IDF surround Gaza and then just f***ing wait and wait and wait until the food, water, and fuel runs out. That’s when the residents of Gaza will start to turn on Hamas. However, when you bomb the populace at large, the citizens begin to blame the nation doing the attacking more than Hamas for the death and destruction. The same logic applies to invading ground forces. Instead of Hamas being the terrorist group holding Palestinians captive in Gaza, they become the fighters protecting citizens and catching IDF bullets. It is better to starve the population into submission. You can’t bomb Hamas out of the population; you need the population to turn on Hamas. Many may argue that the citizens of Gaza have failed to turn on Hamas for the last 15 years. True, but this moment is qualitatively different. Now is the time to try other methods and different strategies. Unfortunately, the entirely understandable urge and desire by Israel for revenge are clouding their better judgment for the long term.
Last, the notion of a widening war is overblown. I just don’t see it. I really don’t. And I don’t care how brutal or far Israel may overreach in this war. Arab countries have slowly been sacrificing and abandoning the Palestinians for years. This is why and how Israel has been allowed to make peace and normalize relations with neighbors that were once thought unthinkable. It started with Egypt and Jordan years ago and has progressed to countries like the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain, and possibly Saudi Arabia. These countries have slowly realized that economics and stability are more important. If the war were to widen, it would have done so by now, and if it does widen to include Iran, I think most other Arab countries (governments) would be okay with that, happy to stay out of the fight. It is a long time coming and long overdue that Iran be ended, and Lord knows we can’t count on the so-called women’s revolution to do it. I’m still waiting for those ridiculous predictions (by “experts”) to come to fruition as if angry women would ever topple Iran’s theocracy.