Thank you for sharing your informed perspective on this complex and tragic predicament. I agree entirely with your assessment. Until recently, I had nothing but loathing for the Israeli right wing--Netanyahu and his cronies--because of their brutalization and dehumanization of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

But Hamas has now forfeited any possible claim to the sympathy of any decent or reasonable person; they are genocidal terrorists, pure and simple, and now that they have played their Trump card (pun intended) by invading and annihilating Israeli men, women, and children alike out of pure hatred, they will deserve their ugly fate. As Thomas Paine once wisely observed, "He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."