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You're right, I allowed myself to be distracted by you - after all, the original discussion was over whether or not some heated statements made by a random Israeli after 10/7 meant the entire post-10/7 conflict in Gaza was a sinister plot for Israelis to expropriate Gazan land. So good job; I got snookered.
But even here you're wrong; the unprovoked nature of the 10/7 attack, as well as its breadth and premeditated objectives to deliberately harm Israeli civilians who had done nothing to Gazans, are what justify the Israeli response and anger. It's not some cold math over how many deaths can be dealt out tit-for-tat, which again is not used by ANYONE in any other conflict because it's manifestly silly and has nothing to do with the actual objectives of either party to the conflict.
Nope. Words have meanings.
This is what they are actually doing, probably to their detriment. See, e.g. the analysis of John Spencer, an instructor in urban warfare at West Point.
"Obeying basic laws and norms of war" is not a demand for "surgical" precision. If Hamas can't measure up to the IDF conventionally, perhaps that's a big sign that armed combat is counterproductive to their political aims.
Not a valid basis to wage war or attack random civilians.
Interesting way to describe the outcome of a lawsuit, but even taking the Palestinian argument at face value it's still not a valid reason to wage war or attack random civilians.
Then you should probably have used a source that actually supported what you're claiming, instead of one that does not.
That's silly only because there is nothing subtle about it. Israel was founded on taking land from the assorted Arabs that lived there before, and has repeatedly expanded by doing that over and over again. With everything it does, it grabs more land. Grabbing and holding land for its privileged ethnic group is its entire purpose.
Italics are not a substitute for an argument. You can't possibly be arguing that Israel did nothing to Palestinians before 10/7, so the only thing your argument can possibly rest on is saying that somehow what it did before is excluded from consideration as a provocation. Have you presented any argument for that, apart from "deaths dealt out tit-for-tat", i.e. saying that the "Palestinians started it", i.e. slicing up a sequence of mutual provocations in a convenient way?
60% of Palestinian fatalities since 10/7 on the first infographic I could find are women, children and the elderly. I have seen plenty of pictures of whole blocks being levelled. If that is surgical precision, i.e. those killings were targeted and deliberate, I think we are deep in genocidal territory, though I'm sure its defenders will have a story about how they vetted everyone in those blocks they levelled and the children were terrorists too.
Note also that per the infographic, something like 2-3% of Israeli 10/7 fatalities are children, to 32% of Palestinian fatalities since then. And then you claim that the Palestinians are the ones killing indiscriminately?
Might be more interesting if it weren't by someone who would almost certainly lose their job if they came to a different conclusion.
Surely having your homeland invaded and occupied is a valid basis to wage war. I will concede that apart from a crazy fringe the Israeli side is not technically arguing that having random civilians on your side attacked is a valid basis to attack random civilians; instead they just engage in gaslighting and Soviet-level denials that they are attacking random civilians, all while continuing to do it. I am genuinely unsure if a greater evil masquerading as good is better than an unapologetic lesser evil.
Israeli court: "seems legit to me"
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