Netanyahu is almost the last person I want to defend. That makes this whole situation a mess, because overall I understand how bad the whole situation for Israel is. For all the ongoing back and forth between “Israel did…” and “someone from the Palestenians did…” over the last 75 years, there are certain turning points. The last one was Oct 7, initiated by the Hamas. The one before, in my eyes, was the 2nd Intifada which came from the Palestenian side instead of taking the 2 state proposal that was on the table for almost 10 years. After that, Israel chose the stance, if there can’t be peace, at least there can be security. They did so most of the time with the person Netanyahu. That was a bad choice, but from that situation there was no good choice to begin with.

For a political solution you need 2 sides who are willing to compromise. From what I’ve seen, the closest the Palestinian side has ever provided was Arafath, but he walked away from a good proposal without even a counter proposal right when the 2nd Intifada started. I don’t know how in you can say it’s only Israel’s making. That’s just not true.

Israel gave up the occupation of Gaza. The Gazeans thanked Israel with electing the Hamas. The Hamas thanked the Gazeans by throwing political opponents from rooftops and letting them lay in the streets as a warning sign to their other fellow Palestinians. Then Israel closed the borders. And the Hamas took every opportunity they could to shoot rockets against Israel and did nothing to improve the living situations for the inhabitants of the Gaza strip.

And from there forward, Israel has no choice but to defend itself with force. There is no political solution with the Hamas.

That doesn’t excuse their agressive settlement behavior in the West Bank, nor their apartheid tendencies. These are in the way of any peaceful solution. But it seems that after Palestinians made it clear there is no chance for peace, Israel said “so be it”.

Perhaps the territory should be returned to the people from whom it was forcibly taken and re-establish Palestine.

I’m pretty certain in hindsight many agree that the foundation of the state Israel in the way it was done was a mistake. But it’s there, and there are only ways into the future, none into the past.

Israel was founded under international law. It’s a state, it’s existence is protected by international law, and, just for the record, delegitimation of the state Israel is a clear marker of a post-WW2 antisemitic statement. A 2 state solution under international law was on the table from the start, but Palestineans didn’t want it back then, too.

I’m absolutely certain that indiscriminately killing at least 10 Palestinians who have nowhere to run for every Israeli who died in a terrorist attack those Palestinians were not responsible for is beyond the pale.

The Hamas has a long record of using civilians as shields, clearly a war crime every single time. International humanitarian law says, civilians can not be targeted, and should be avoided as collateral damage where possible. Where any other country under attack evacuates their civilians out of strike zones, the Hamas prevents their civilians from leaving, or moves them in. We don’t know much about the situation on the ground, but with that background knowledge your 10:1 numbers can as easily be blamed onto the Hamas.

My take is, if you’re non-combatant Gazean, you have 2 enemies. And to me it’s unclear which is more dangerous.