You edited out a lot of my post, I know it was long, but I came into the thread two pages in, and hit a lot of topics at once, otherwise it would have derailed into many tangents, such as this.
With your edit of my post, conveniently flipping the question I posed to you and Ree back to me without answering it yourself btw, one thing that could have possibly curtailed some of the innocent casualties would have been the return of ALL of the also INNOCENT hostages Hamas took on 10/7, as Israel stated. Then they would have been open to peace talks. That never happened, but what did happen instead was the Iranian proxies ramped up attacks on Israel by air and at sea, thinking that Israel was weaker and more vulnerable than they were, and that the US and their Western allies were too spread out in Ukraine to offer as much support. This is Iran vs Israel, not Palestine or Lebanon, it’s just that the people in those countries are caught in the crossfire (not going to debate that the Palestinians allowed them into power, because it’s not that simple) and that’s the reality of these scenarios, which truly sucks. Read what Michael Herzog, Israel’s envoy in Washington said yesterday, literally saying Israel’s enemies “smelled blood” and sensed vulnerability. So no, this isn’t Israel wiping out a bunch of innocent people, Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran is as much or more to blame for what happened, but plays the “good guy” card while pointing fingers at “evil” Israel when they attack them, completely ignoring the fact they were hiding among innocent people…Hamas and Hezbollah do not care about those innocent lives they endanger, they do care about the propaganda they can spread with half truths or flat out untrue lies because of their hate. If anyone thinks that’s not intentional, you might want to open your minds a little more and look at the bigger picture, or even at other past/current wars, and which sides use the propaganda angle more than others.
So what constitutes a proper response by Israel to the attack on 10/7? Well WWJD, the attacks never stopped by the Iranian proxies, but you seem to only look at the Palestinian angle. Hamas should have returned the innocent hostages, not constantly bombed Israel, and not had the Houthis and other groups disrupt the Mediterranean Sea shipping routes to start….see, it’s not just Israel here. When 9/11 happened, should the US have just attacked for a week or a month like you said? There’s no easy answer when you fight an enemy that attacks innocents for no reason to “justify” their cause. That is not what Israel is doing, but it is what Hamas did, no matter how you spin it.
Side note, but related, when I had a conversation about 6-12 months into the Ukraine/Russia war after a Russian bomb had inadvertently landed on Polish soil, and I was thinking at the time, this might get dicey with NATO, I was told then that Russia was basically a third rate military force that has nukes, which has been proven true. They however seemed more concerned about Iran. It dawned on me not long ago that they were basically right.
The thing is though, the Israel war bought Russia some time and gave them momentum…there’s a reason why these countries are friendly with each other, again people need to look at the bigger picture. But that’s a whole other thread topic.
I look forward to your edits of my posts, reminds me of the current social media environment on political topics for example, where they use one line of a five minute answer and use it to fit their own agenda, but do what you need to do. ✌️
