The Revenge Ratio
7-Oct-2023 and a corollary of the post hoc fallacy.
The idea this all kicked off 7 October is ridiculous. The Palestinians cannot be allowed to kill 7 Israelis for every Palestinian killed this year by Israelis prior to 7-Oct. The 7 to 1 revenge ratio can not be anything other than an evil atrocity. That is why 7-Oct was an evil atrocity. Similarly Israelis cannot now be allowed to kill 7 Palestinians for every Israeli killed 7-Oct.
Where are the reports in the Western media of the 200 Palestinians including 47 children killed by Israelis in the West Bank this year prior to 7-Oct?
1-Jan to 6-Oct: 200 Palestinians killed.
7-Oct: 1400 Israelis killed. 7:1
8-Oct to now, and to come: 10,000 Palestinians killed. 7:1
All three of these are atrocities.
The post hoc fallacy has an interesting corollary. Whereas that which occurs after something else does not necessarily make the prior event the cause of the later, what we know for sure is that the later event cannot ever cause the former.
So let's be clear, the 7-Oct-2023 atrocity did not tit-for-tat event before event before event cause the eviction of the Palestinians from their land 1948. The fact that the 7 October attack was an evil atrocity does not erase the already existing context of the conflict, a people robbed of their land.
The rise of Hamas followed the rejection of the two state solution by Israel. So, similarly Hamas did not cause that rejection, but that's how it's argued.
Israel's ongoing incremental settlement of the West Bank turns Palestine into an island archipelago unmistakably reminiscent of the Bantustans of South Africa, all the good land and water resources separated out for a people chosen by God, so one side does say. The two state solution, still the official policy of the USA etc etc, is made impossible thereby. And, such being impossible, a desperate people is allowed nothing but despair? Certainly the empathy the Palestinians deserved before 7-Oct was not evident before 7-Oct.
The evilness of 7-Oct-2023 is now used as justification for an ethnic cleansing started 70 years ago. But, again, a subsequent event cannot cause a prior one.
Give a dog a bad name. The dog was chained in the corner of its own yard by the usurpers of the yard. The dog was not mad before it was chained up. The now mad dog slips its chains and attacks. It will be whipped until it is maimed...
...by a civilised people who share our values. Shame on us therefore!
My view on this is hopelessly simplistic, but until one side (or both) takes the moral high ground, the cycle will continue. Both sides have legitimate grievances and have been wronged for generations, but at sometime a line has to be drawn in the sand. Sometimes the bravest thing to do is not to retaliate and hold out an olive branch. "Before setting out on a journey of revenge you must first dig two graves".