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Notes -
It’s ridiculous to suggest that developing defensive technology that reduces your civilian casualties means you no longer have the right to respond to attempted acts of war against civilians to the same degree.
Does this argument generalise into one against animal rights/welfare?
(It doesn't seem so ridiculous to me. Noblesse oblige.)
I don’t think the argument translates the way you imply. Nevertheless, if we can obtain truly identical animal products (meat, leather etc) without harming animals I would consider it morally justifiable to wind down the process of farming them. Similarly, it is fair to acknowledge that without the Iron Dome Israel would likely have killed far more Palestinians than it has in order to prevent Israeli civilian deaths. October 7 shows the limitations of this strategy, however, such that the relevant analogy (that of, say, not beating the shit out of your toddler who keeps punching you) is not wholly fair.
Israel can prevent some Palestinian attacks. Nevertheless, the genocidal urge remains and it is transparently impossible to prevent (at this time) all Palestinian anti-Jewish violence with solely defensive means. This justifies ongoing violent retaliation without significant concern about ‘proportionality’.
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