The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was Justified (3rd attempt)

My opponent seems to think that I have accepted his premise that Israel's counterattacks must be proportional in order to be justified. I have accepted no such arguments. I merely responded to the arguments he gave as they were completely irrelevant to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. My argument was that even if proportionality is a factor in determining whether or not the attack was justified, my opponent's arguments are still fatally flawed since the examples he used were much to extreme. The truth is that Israel must react with decisive military force when it is attacked. Whether or not it is proportional has no bearing on whether or not the attack is justified. If we were to follow my opponent's logic, then the Allied powers in World War II would have been in the wrong due to the fact that they used overwhelming force against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Wars are never fought proportionally. The side that launches decisive attacks is the side that is victorious. "Firstly my opponent has not argued against the fact it's the attacking force's responsibility to ensure that only a reasonable number of civilian casualties occur, clearly not what has happened in this invasion. If Israel wishes to defend itself by attacking Hamas the onus is on it to ensure that it doesn't do so while blowing up multiple innocent civilians for it to be justified." This all sounds nice, but is nearly impossible to practice if Israel wants a decisive victory against Hamas. Furthermore, who gets to decide what a "reasonable" amount of civilian casualties are acceptable? The majority of Palestinians killed were members of Hamas. In comparison, the number of non combatants is pretty small. What is disturbing is that it is supposedly Israel's responsiblity to minimize civilian casualties, but no one says anything of Hamas' attempts to maximize civilian casualties. As I stated in my previous argument, Hamas has clearly used civilians as human shields. If Israel didn't show the self restraint they currently do, FAR more civilians would be dead. It is Hamas who should be held responsible for any civilian deaths as they are the ones who perpetuate this bloody conflict. "Secondly my opponent simply maintains that because Hamas member is in the area of a civilian, it is his fault if the civilian dies. This is fairly ridiculous to say. Let me give you an example. A Hamas member is seen launching a rocket and run's into a nearby apartment complex known to hold approximately 500 civilians. Israel has three choices. They can either move into there with ground forces, tracking down the militant or capturing him. They can leave him to fight another day because they think the risk to their men is too high. Finally they could drop a 2000 pound bomb onto the building, guaranteeing that they do kill the militant, but also 500 civilians in the process. By your logic, the 500 civilian casualties is the fault of the single Hamas member running into the building, and no moral blame can be assigned to the Israeli commander simply because he is attacking a militant." It is against the Geneva conventions to use civilians as human shields. Terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are known to use civilian shields as weapons against Israel. My opponent seems to excuse the acts of these terrorists in favor of blaming Israel for defending themselves. Israel actually did move ground forces into the Gaza strip and a lot of Hamas members were killed by the IDF soldiers, but civilians were still caught in the crossfire. Sending in ground troops does not guarantee the civilians will not be killed. The first option of leaving the militant to fight another day is obviously a very undesirable option, but it is one that Israel has taken many times. Israel cannot afford to do this often, however, as this will only encourage Hamas members to use shields more often. Here is a link of a Hamas leader admitting to the usage of civilians as human shields. http://www.youtube.com... "Come on now, I think we can agree that with any targeting of a militant force the number of civilian casualties must be taken into account, and you cannot simply lay all following moral consequences of the following action at the feet of the enemy for simply being in a location at the time." When the enemy intentionally hides among civilians in order to get them killed, then the blood of those civilians is on his head. This is common sense. "This goes back to my example of a murderer taking hostages inside a building and the police blowing up the building in response. You can assign partial blame to the murder for taking the hostages, but you cannot excuse the action of the police for killing everyone inside." Again, this is a ridiculous analogy. This is a war. Hamas is dedicated to the utter destruction of Israel, not some random murderer. "I'd also state that Hamas tactics, like it or not, aren't designed to TRY and kill Palestinian civilians. It's designed to try and stop Israel attacking. I fully admit this and understand why they are attacking this way. Israel is one of the largest military forces in the world and Hamas simply cannot take it on toe to toe, which leads to the tactics we see. This is the same with terrorism and any guerrilla warfare action out there. Unfair as it is, it works for a reason, and that is that the civilian casualties that result are unacceptably high. Does this mean a nation should ignore the civilian casualties it will cause out of frustration? Of course not." If my opponent looks at the link I posted, he will see that it IS designed to kill Palestinian civilians. As I stated before, using human shields creates a win/win situation for Hamas. If Israel restrains itself, the the Hamas member lives to fight again. If Israel attacks, the civilians will die thereby awarding a PR victory to Hamas. In answer to my opponent's question, no Israel should not ignore civilian casualties. The thing is, Israel DOESN'T ignore civilian casualties. It does everything it can to minimize the amount of civilian casualties. "My opponent also says that this is because Hamas is unwilling to negotiate at all, however this attack came off the back of a relatively successful ceasefire where the amount of rockets fired dropped by 98% compared to the 4.5 months before it. Clearly this shows that Hamas will negotiate as long as everyone is getting a fair trade at the table. Military options aren't the answer, and aren't the only options as my opponent tries to suggest." Right. And who was it that broke the cease fire? Hamas. Who is it that always breaks the cease fire? Hamas. My opponent's argument shows a lack of understanding of what Hamas' as well as other Islamic terrorist organizations' actions are driven by. They are driven by a religious belief that requires them to kill Jews and Christians and conquer the rest of the world for Islam. The reason Hamas cannot be reasoned with is because they do not desire peace. They desire to see Israel destroyed. Here are some excerpts from Hamas' charter. "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." If the Palestinians desired peace, Israel would be more than willing to negotiate peace. However, when Islamic extremism is still prevalent, peace is not possible because these people do not want to negotiate. They want destruction. Because of this and other reasons, Israel's invasion of the Gaza strip was more than justifiable; it was necessary.