This will be long…
I appreciate you stepping back from the vitriol of the other guys here and clarifying your position on Hamas and Hezbollah.
But lets address the core of your argument, because your thesis that Israeli military actions are what continuously reproduce this violence is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of the enemy we are facing.
First, you claim that destroying Hamas or Hezbollah won't solve the problem because 'underlying conditions' will just produce a new group. This completely ignores the role of theological ideology and state sponsorship. Hamas and Hezbollah are not spontaneous grassroots movements born out of local grievances; they are heavily funded, heavily armed proxies of the Iranian regime. They possess billions of dollars in advanced weaponry, underground military fortresses, and high-tech intelligence apparatuses. An angry population cannot build a precision-guided missile arsenal or a 600 km tunnel network out of raw 'grief and anger.' They need a radical, totalizing Islamist ideology and a foreign superpower to build a military state. Destroying their military capabilities absolutely solves a massive part of the security problem, because an angry civilian without an Iranian rocket launcher cannot threaten an entire nation.
Second, you accuse me of viewing Palestinians only as a security problem and not as human beings. The reality is exactly the opposite: Hamas and Hezbollah are the ones who refuse to view Palestinians and Lebanese as human beings.
They explicitly use them as human shields, store ammunition under their children's beds, and build military headquarters beneath their hospitals. When you argue that Israel should stop its military operations because it creates 'grief and anger,' you are handing a permanent victory to a cynical strategy that weaponizes civilian suffering.
You are essentially telling Israel: 'If a terrorist group hides behind civilians, you must allow them to attack you forever, because fighting back will just make more people angry.' No sovereign nation can accept a suicide pact as a security policy.
Finally, your historical timeline is reversed. You claim Israel's actions prevent a pathway to peace. But history shows that every single time Israel took massive risks for peace offering a state at Camp David in 2000, or completely uprooting every single soldier and civilian from Gaza in 2005 the response wasn't a peaceful civilian society. The response was a wave of suicide bombings and the election of a genocidal terror group. The violence doesn't persist because Israel refuses to offer a future; it persists because the fundamentalist leadership on the other side refuses to accept a Jewish state in any borders whatsoever.
I don't expect you to agree, but please understand: comparing the defensive military actions of a liberal democracy to the deliberate, genocidal slaughter of a terrorist organization isn't 'nuance.' It is a false moral equivalence that sanitizes the very forces keeping both Israelis and Palestinians trapped in this cycle.
Yes, Iran's funding of terror groups must be removed entirely, and the International community should sanction Iran to achieve this. This is the only way to limit Hamas and Hezbollah's capabilities. The problem then arises that when I say : And Israel needs to stop expanding in the West Bank, and the International community should sanction Israel to achieve this, your responses are not strong.
As I understand it, fundamentally, the contrast in our arguments is that:
a. (I am led to believe that) you believe that military action will lead to victory, and criticism of the IDF is an attack.
b. i believe that military action perpetuates the conflict and that no entity - IDF or otherwise, is above criticism. I accept you cant or wont say certain things, but this hurts your argument.
(as an example: re: Palestinians as human beings. Rather then address my point, you flip it around saying Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to view Palestinians as human beings, sidestepping Israels collective punishment in Gaza; the 2 years of bombing. the West Bank etc.)
In addition:
c. (I am led to believe that) you do not subscribe to the notion of certain Israeli actions are acts of aggression, and are instead all acts of defense.
d. I believe that Israels actions, particularly in the West Bank, are acts of aggression. The bombing of Iran in 2026, the bombing of Qatar, also acts of aggression (Bombing Iran in 2025 would be considered a defensive action however).
and finally:
e. (I am led to believe that) you do not subscribe to the notion of proportionate response.
f. I believe that disproportionate response (and Israel is not alone in this, the United States is the same) is not in Israels long term interests. The US can get away with it because its so big, isolated and has an ultimate army.
At the end of the day Israel is a small country with a tiny population and it is not isolated, it is smack bang in the middle east. Yes it has a highly advanced and trained military, it has some very intelligent people, but there is a glaring problem with the relationship with the Palestinian people and the relationship Israel has with it's neighbors.
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I accept your country suffers repeated terrorist attacks, and I acknowledge that for a variety of reasons Israels responses will always be disproportionate. Iran has funded Hamas and Hezbollah for decades, this is a fact. If you cut the funding from Iran the effectiveness of Hamas and Hezbollah will be greatly reduced. i.e. you will reduce the degree to which people you are oppressing, in Gaza and the West Bank can operate or resist Israel's will. However, you are still left with Israel doing bad things to Gaza and the West Bank (and its neighbors).
The slow creeping death which is the West Bank is a topic that has to be acknowledged as wrong.