As a middle American WASP and gentile you simply don't get what motivates Israel and Jews. You've never been a target of pogroms, extermination, forced to emigrate, read signs outside of hotels saying "no Jews and dogs allowed".
This is a war between a criminal mafia with a green flag gang cross-dressing as a pseudo-revolutionary Islamist insurgency which aims to destroy Israel and its people. But don't take it from me. Listen to Palestinian peace activist Bassem Eid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6of72XgiUg&t=27s
Or haven't you read Hamas' exterminationist charter, which explicitly says its one state solution of a Judenrein Palestine from the river to the sea is non-negotiable. The PLO's charter is not much different: https://www.slideshare.net/donaldmeissner/jews-israel-the-middle-east-20086-1234279
The Palestinian people substantially agree with Hamas' and Fatah's charters. Read these interviews: https://medium.com/the-judean-peoples-front/palestinians-say-what-they-want-eaab778266b8
The % of Palestinians surveyed on the West Bank who agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is: 3%.
Some more obvious differences you fail to notice in your hubris-driven therapy and psychobabble can solve everything swamp of moral equivalence nonsense:
Hamas bombs and shoots without warning.
Israel warns before bombing Hamas.
Hamas defends rockets with people. (Hamas says openly it wants human shields: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXZEzbT0H1s)
Israel defends people with rockets.
The IDF kills civilians unintentionally.
Hamas kills civilians intentionally.
The IDF pursues military objectives.
Hamas pursues killing with no military objectives.
"You can infer an organization’s objectives from its priorities. Hamas, as a genocidal state-in-waiting if it remains in power, DID NOT prioritize military objectives, as the veteran Andrew Tanner would define them:
“What Hamas did was the definition of mindless. All that combat power, a breach in the wall, the enemy paralyzed, and it sent dozens of fighters to murder people at a dance party. Not more military bases, not to the West Bank or Jerusalem, but farming collectives and dances. That indicates Hamas is driven purely by the desire to bolster its credentials as a resistance organization by racking up a body count. You don’t allocate scarce resources or train personnel without intent. The many evils Israel has done in the past can’t be set against this as if there’s a cosmic balance sheet. Hamas has taken an action that implies a long term desire to carry out further atrocities with no shred of military benefit. It no longer matters what anyone feels — the logic of the State dictates that Hamas be annihilated regardless of the damage to bystanders. Most Israelis will default to allowing their government to make them safe from the terrible fates wrought upon so many of their fellow countrymen by any means necessary.”
"Israel is famous for disproportionate responses":
Here's what proportionate response would look like if roles were reversed:
A realistic role reversal would include the truly proportionate response that anti-Israel protesters and politicians demand (https://medium.com/discourse/hamas-israel-rename-relocate-and-role-reversal-counterfactuals-38f1bf87551):
“Every Friday and Saturday, every rabbi in Israel would remind his congregation how important it is to kill all of the Muslims in the world, wherever they find them.
“Israeli schools would brainwash Israeli kids to die killing Muslims, for the glory of making Judaism dominant in the Middle East. Israeli TV would broadcast threats of genocide to the Palestinians, with the IDF entertainment unit singing specially-written songs in Arabic about how bloody and glorious the massacre will be. (At the same time, they’d go to the UN and accuse the Palestinians of genocide.)
“Israeli girls would be killed by their own families if they liked boys. So would Israeli boys. IDF artillery would shoot rockets into Arab towns without any military targets, with the intention of killing as many civilians as possible, several times a day, sometimes hundreds of times a day.
“The Mossad would send young Jews to blow themselves up in shopping centres, hotels, cafes, nightclubs and bus stops around the world. Israeli municipalities would name streets after the suicide bombers, and the government would pay their families a pension for life.
“The proud Jewish mothers of the suicide bombers would appear on Israeli TV encouraging mothers everywhere to give up their children for the cause of killing Muslims.” (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-a-proportionate-response-would-look-like/?fbclid=IwAR0tg3MsNxPZr44Hdwn3jmJy5ujPSiEm7jBatKVlBwaNyfQBENqxh-JvcHc)
This list is very incomplete. But I won’t wage a war of attrition against readers.
"They've been at this since 1967"--Actually from 1967 to 2000 there weren't checkpoints and tens of thousands of Gazans went to work in Israel. Just last month Israel expanded the number of work permits from 10 to 20000 in the hope of keeping Gaza quiet. But Hamas had been planning this attack for a year already.
It's not about forgiveness or vengeance. Two peoples claim the same land, with one--Arabs--having arrived there in the 7th century, nearly 2000 years after the first--Jews. In 1937, 1947-48, 1979 and 2000-01 Arabs repreatedly said no to a Jewish yes to a two state solution. Hamas is just the latest Arab no. Its Fatah opponents did the same in negotiations in 2000-01:
"Never Miss an Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity
2000: Arafat proves Abba Eban, Israel’s 1960s foreign minister, right: “the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” He rejects the December 23, 2000 Clinton Parameters for a demilitarized Palestinian state:
On 94–96% of contiguous territory in the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, compensated by land swaps elsewhere.
An East Jerusalem capital comprised of then current Arab areas with sovereignty over the Dome of the Rock.
Right of return to “Palestine as the homeland of the Palestinian people”: “the Palestinian refugees would not be able to “return” to locations inside Israel without Israeli approval, instead, they could return to the new State of Palestine. This formulation would be “consistent with the two-state approach…the State of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian People and the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.”
“Clinton asked each side for a yes or no response by December 27th. It was made clear that a “yes” meant agreement within the Parameters and that a non-response, a maybe, or acceptance outside the Parameters would all be considered rejections. Clinton presented the Parameters as take-it-or-leave it, and if not accepted, they would all be off the table once Clinton left office on January 20, 2001. ((https://honestreporting.com/in-depth-arafat-rejected-peace-in-2000/)
As with the 1947 UN partition, Israel said yes before the response deadline of December 27. Arafat, who had unleashed a second Intifada in September after rejecting similar parameters at Camp David in July, said yes with reservations well outside the Clinton Parameters. as stated in the memo drafted by the PLO’s negotiation support unit, which he took to his January 2, 2001 meeting with Clinton at the White House:
“The memo specifically clarified that the return the Palestinians demand is to “‘their homes,’ wherever located — not to their ‘homeland’ or to ‘historic Palestine.’” The memo further…rejected defining the new Palestinian state as “the homeland of the Palestinian people” because “this nullifies the right of return.” Finally, the memo enshrined the Palestinian rejection that a Jewish Temple ever existed: “In the first formulation regarding the Haram, accepting that the Western Wall is a part of either ‘the space sacred to Judaism’ or ‘the Holy of Holies’ will amount to implicit recognition that the Temple lies under the Haram.”
After the meeting Arafat was asked by Prince Bandar and Egyptian ambassador Fahmy if he had done the deal. Arafat said yes, lying to both:
“Bandar’s comments to Arafat at the moment of truth on January 2, 2001: “I hope you remember, sir, what I told you. If we lose this opportunity, it is not going to be a tragedy. This is going to be a crime.” …”I wanted to cry, my heart was burning at how the opportunity was lost again and perhaps for the last time, as if I was seeing a movie playing in front of my eyes. An opportunity comes, and it is lost. After it is lost, we agree on what we rejected, and we put it on the table.” (https://honestreporting.com/in-depth-arafat-rejected-peace-in-2000/)
So the Saudi prince and Abba Eban agreed: the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
