You mean reacting with war crimes, crimes against humanity, attempted genocide? This without even mentioning the fact that, given Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine, a military attack to Israel was entirely justified.
And honestly, if it had been my daughter raped and killed at a music festival, I'd have done worse.
And by the same proportion, what would be the justified reaction of Palestinians to Israel now if they had the means? Complete nuclear annihilation?
Israel exists. That bell can't be un-rung. Palestinians could have got used to that fact and tried to build a nation, instead they want to kill Jews (and it is Jews, not just Israelis).
Israel doesn't have clean hands in this, and could have done better as well. I've not heard of mass rapes by Israeli soldiers, though.
And how many rapes and to what level of systematicity do you need it to raise to your attention?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_viol...
> During the ongoing Gaza war, Israeli male and female soldiers, guards, medical staff have reportedly committed wartime sexual violence against Palestinian women, children and men[1][2][3][4] including rape, gang-rape, sexualized torture and genital mutilation.[5][6][7][8][9]
Would you be relieved to know that they're taking your home and killing your innocent family because someone on your side did something bad before? Or would the sense of injustice push you to more violence against the other side? And how would you deal with the knowledge that the other side is actually gaining ground at each further round of violence, unilaterally deciding what's fair for them to take, and that even if you can swallow your pride and stay put, someone else from your side eventually break and provide more reasons for the next persecution?
So the only way out is to force the West to change their mind and break their ties with Israel. I don't know if those who planned October 7 had in mind only to use the hostages to keep the West's attention on Palestine, or if they had already taken in account Israel's barbaric reaction. Somehow though, at an absurd price, it's working. The public image of Israel is compromised for decades, people are horrified, Israeli lobbies are exposed, the ICC has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli PM, the call for sanctions is louder every day, the images of a new genocide are on everyone's screens.
What is incredible is the straitjacket that the Israeli lobbies have put the Western leaders in: two years into a televised genocide the Western powers have barely started to condemn it in words, but still have failed to take any meaningful action. Of this, too, the people are taking notice.
Frankly, so what? The west cant abandon Israel because the second they do israel just turns to china and begins the actual final solution to their palestinian problem. If you think the israelis are mistreating the palestinians now just wait until you see what they do when theyre a full pariah state. End of the day geopolitical reality for western leaders is still probably that backing israel is better than the alternatives for them.
I know that you were probably exaggerating, but when you say: "just wait until you see what they do when they're a full pariah state", I need to remind you that full pariah states are routinely sanctioned, embargoed and bombed by the US and NATO allies for much less than Israel has been doing so far. So no, they don't want to go that way. If that were the way to have a free hand with Palestine, they might have abandoned the West long ago.
Both the US and Israel would have been better off not reacting at all than this.
It literally murdered 5% of Iraq's population in cold blood on the basis of outright lies.
Iraqi mothers still suffer the US' war crimes.
Unfortunately the citizens of these countries don't want to live in functioning democracies.
That is utterly incorrect. They want to live in sovereign democracies with control over their own nations resources.
The USA and its allies do not want that, as they have - as a whole - designated themselves the "shepherds" of the "lesser cultures of the world". A viewpoint you have propagated.
It is true that the US often acts like an imperialist monster. That doesn't make other similar behavior acceptable.