> That place would be leveled and you wouldn't hear a peep of opposition.

You wouldn't hear any opposition from inside the USA.

At the same time, the USA levelling the place would create a lot of opposition basically everywhere else.

The UK government trying to toe the line with the USA about invading Iraq in the name of the GWOT was met with 10-16% of the UK population marching in protest against UK involvement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot...

This is something I bring up whenever anyone can't understand why Israel's response to Hamas' attack nearly two years ago now is likely even stronger than the USA's to 9/11 — even at best it would take a decade for the rage to dissipate, and the Israeli people are unlikely to care about the opinions of people like me for the same reason the Americans didn't.

>Israel's response to Hamas' attack nearly two years ago now is likely even stronger than the USA's to 9/11

I dunno about that. Iraq suffered between a quarter million and a million dead (depending on how you count). The % of those who touched a gun is low, under %10. The vast majority are civilians.

There wasn't a focused effort to bring in food, water or electricity to Iraq. A key difference is that Iraqis could leave, and hundreds of thousands did (to Syria, Jordan and other countries).

Israel's war in Gaza, messy and horrible as it is, is far (very far) more focused on Hamas than America's wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I should have phrased it differently, I meant the psychological response, not the military response.

I'm British, you wouldn't hear a peep from me. I'm not Jewish either.

I think you're incorrect about the opposition. You get the loud mouth left that for some reason have aligned themselves to a terrorist organisation. But if you go down the pub and speak to real people here in the UK, it's the complete opposite. It's reflected in the most recent polling where the vast majority of the country voted for what could be described as the most right-wing party seriously operating in the UK today.

People are really getting fed up of Islamic nonsense leaking into our completely incompatible society.

We did this after 9/11 and people generally understand both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to be huge mistakes that achieved little other than create a lot of corpses and spend a lot of money.

"Well, obviously they are blinded by rage" is not exactly my favorite argument.

I was alive during 9/11 and this is more or less what we did, albeit in a more distant set of countries. I don't think we came out of the experience better off.

"albeit in a more distant set of countries"

You've said that like it's of no significance.

Nope, we would have sent in strike teams, special ops, etc to get the hostages out BEFORE leveling the place. Anything different would face massive opposition and carry a political death sentence for whoever gave the order.

Oh strike teams? Like the ones they sent in to Palestine? The ones that found it impossible to get anyone back due to the density of depraved traps around every corner and every tunnel while dealing with a populace that literally wants to wipe you and cut your head off at the first chance?

"Anything different would face massive opposition and carry a political death sentence for whoever gave the order."

That's your personal opinion.

Few problems with your statement are:

1) Israeli government willingly favored Hamas governing the Gaza strip and completely cut off the Palestinian authority

2) Israeli government ignored their own intelligence and even allowed money and weapons transfer from Qatar to Hamas

3) Israeli intelligence knew October 7 was gonna happen and did little to prevent it

4) While October 7 is one of the most despicable acts of crime and terror ever happened, it has not happened in a vacuum. It has happened by people who are literally living in the hell and open prison the Israelis have created for them

>3) Israeli intelligence knew October 7 was gonna happen and did little to prevent it

This is not considered valid in Israel.

In Israel October 7 is considered a massive failure of intelligence. No one in the top 30 of any Israeli intelligence agency that Oct 7 was going to happen.

You have raised some interesting points that I will read about and try to make sense of.

points are bad

hamas came to power in 2006 after usa forced election (against will of PA that was afraid that hamas will win). after this usa was horrified by outcome and trained/sponsored PA to take over gaza and depose hamas. PA failed and it forces were shot/thrown from roofs/dragged behind bikes and supporters tortured into obedience.

as outcome PA ceased paying salaries to it employees in gaza and foot the bill for infrastructure/etc.

there was massive outrage in media that "hundreds of thousands of people in gaza will starve now because they have no money to buy food" that forced Israel to allow money transfers from Qatar

Thanks for the info