Israel/Palestine

With the exception a begrudging peace developed over 75 with years, with Palestinian Israelis (Muslims who are living peacefully and prosperously with jews); with Egypt (in 1978 in exchange for returning the vast Sinai peninsula from which Egypt had staged their military for attack and had blocked off shipping to Israel); and with Jordan (for some of the West Bank that Jordan had annexed in 1948, a truly stolen land as a land grab, and Israel had captured because Jordan had their military for attack from there), Arab states have historically proven unwilling to live peacefully with Israel way before Hamas was even a thing, before Egypt ceded control of Gaza, etc.

There were failed land for peace talks with Lebanon and Syria, because, well, Hezbollah. How about the Houthis? Does the left support them too? They frame their current bombing as supporting Palestinians, but we know it is deeper than that. It always has been. They mostly want the Jews dead or otherwise out of the region.

As Israel has become strong both militarily and economically, surrounding nations are starting to realize co-existence is a necessary evil for them. But now it's an ongoing struggle with Islamic militant groups of all stripes - nestled in so many countries, all intent on destroying Israel (and the US, too). Some see this initiation of this current war as radical Islamist efforts to subvert Israeli peace talks with Saudi and UAE.

Gaza is a terrorist camp, run by Hamas through an underground network into public buildings shielded by real people, who Hamas considers their outer defense, treats as a human iron dome.

Add to that Iran and Quatar and Bahrain with their deep oil pockets are funding Hamas because they want the jews out of the middle east. Consider the "Nakba" of Jews forced from the 22 Arab Muslim countries - >1 million people ethnically cleansed from '48 to '67, expunged from the entire Arab world save for 0.1% of a tiny sliver of land, half desert, and half made arable by Israeli technology and focus on infrastructure.

What shall we do? Go back to Europe? They tried to exterminate us in 1945, almost did too, the Jewish population has not yet recovered pre-WWII numbers.

The bottom line here is for existential reasons, Israel dare not show weakness to any of its 22 surrounding hostile Arab states. She made it through repeated multi-country attacks/wars over the years, and now is facing dragged out terrorist war coming from hostile groups from all directions. And again and again, the Palestinians are being used as an excuse, but we all know it is really about getting rid of the Jews.