What they should have done.

Shored defences to reassure Israelis living on the borders. Assured ordinary Palestinians. The atrocities committed by Hamas are self defeating if Israel doesn't respond with mass killings of Palestinian civilians.

Palestinians mainly don't support Hamas. Nor do ordinary Iranians. And if Israel took the moral high ground tacit support for Hamas from Palestinian supporters would drain. Any suggestion of moral equivalence between an IDF soldier and men who get pleasure from severing the heads of babies becomes hard to maintain.

The binary zero sum arguments on both sides would weaken. Then with as much precision as possible take out Hamas leaders and help rebuild Palestine. Pour billions in to social and medical aid.

I am not sure the story of severing babies heads is true, because the same propaganda is trotted out in every war, with little evidence.
I might have have missed something, of course.

Honey wrote:
I am not sure the story of severing babies heads is true, because the same propaganda is trotted out in every war, with little evidence.
I might have have missed something, of course.

You could well be correct Honey; but in one sense it doesn't matter...

Honey wrote:
I am not sure the story of severing babies heads is true, because the same propaganda is trotted out in every war, with little evidence.
I might have have missed something, of course.

There was the Rape of Nanjing massacre, Unit 731, Vietcong did some barbaric things...so the did the Americans and Aussie's in Nam.

If I remember correctly there was a BS story in the media during the horrific Yugoslav Wars particularly over the Vukovar massacre of prisoners. It was reported back then in the MSM it was only children being slaughtered.

Green Man wrote:
[quote]Honey wrote:


There was the Rape of Nanjing massacre, Unit 731, Vietcong did some barbaric things...so the did the Americans and Aussie's in Nam.

If I remember correctly there was a BS story in the media during the horrific Yugoslav Wars particularly over the Vukovar massacre of prisoners. It was reported back then in the MSM it was only children being slaughtered.

When you are a soldier you can be called on to commit acts of inhumanity at another's behest. Psychologically the way this is achieved - and your long term peace of mind is better served - is to think of your target as other than human. If you treat your target with dignity you affirm their humanity, if you rape or torture them you affirm their inhumanity. I am only surprised war does not lead to more atrocity.