My last(?) word on I/P

I know, I know, no one fucking cares what I think, but this shit is keeping me awake at night.  I have to out with it.  So here's a thought experiment for you: what if Israel took no retaliatory action against the Palestinians? What if they maintained a purely defensive stance? I know that the lizard-brain need for some sort of retaliation is so strong that even a lot of people criticizing the current nightmare are going to think, "well, but they have to do something." But do they? Here is a statement that I think, paradoxically, is wildly controversial yet indisputably true: Israel not responding with violence to every Hamas atrocity is necessary if the cycle of violence is ever to be broken. Not sufficient, of course, but absolutely necessary. Why do I call this "indisputable" when a fuck-ton of people would loudly dispute it? Because I'm pretty damn sure that, if they forced themselves to think about it rationally for a moment, even they would have to concede its truth value. Come fucking on: you're trying to tell me they really, in their heart of hearts, believe that that murdering thousands of civilians and radicalizing thousand more is going to help with fucking anything? Get out of here with that bullshit.

It isn't, obviously, that I don't understand the desire for cathartic revenge (though I'm also alarmed by the idea that murdering unrelated civilians can satisfy that desire). But societies can't function on that basis, and they're not supposed to. And I'm not trying to make you feel good about themself here in the short-term; I'm trying to stop you experiencing massive violence in the long-term. I know, I know, you want them both. But guess what? You can't always get absolutely everything you want, a lesson typically learned by small children. So choose.

UPDATE: I realize that I was too generous above, to at least some percentage of Israelis: because "bomb the Palestinians into submission" is not going to solve the problem, but "commit a total genocide against the Palestinians"...well, that wouldn't solve it either, but I can see how people--psychopathic people--would genuinely believe it would.  I know this doesn't apply to all Israelis, but the rhetoric we've seen makes it clear that it does apply to some.  Inchoatia regrets the error, I guess.