> This is a situation that no country in the world would countenance. You can't invade and shut down a country without a massive retaliatory strike.

The most difficult and perhaps most important skill for a soldier is knowing when NOT to pull the trigger. Here's an interview with Delta operator Dale Comstock, when he had an opportunity to shoot a gunman but didn't because he knew he'd hit the civilian BEHIND him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSUUWl8nes

"You have to make good decisions, because you have to live with them."

The problem isn't the "What" Israel is doing, it's the how. We know Israel has the tools at its disposal to conduct an air campaign differently. It has the aviation platforms, the munitions, the surveillance assets, the AI models to assist with information processing. All of that can combine to produce a Master Air Attack Plan and supporting Air Tasking Orders, managed by an Air Operations Center with a robust Fires Cell that should be capable of significantly suppressing Hamas's rocket artillery without rendering Gaza uninhabitable.

But that isn't what the IAF did. So they are either incompetent, or malevolent. Given that the IAF has a multi-decade reputation for being VERY competent, that kinda narrows it down.

> And it is entirely possible, and I would say likely, that only the massive Israel strike on Gaza prevented Hezbollah from joining in the war.

Israel's munitions stockpile is not large. It is quite possible that at the tail end of surged bombing missions against Hamas, the IAF would not have had enough ordnance to be decisive against Hezbollah. I think Iran is adroitly avoiding putting Israel into a situation where it feels existentially threatened until Iran has some sort of solution to the Samson Option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

Hezbollah didn't initiate a massive cross-border invasion because Iran doesn't want Israel to panic and nuke the entire Middle East. The overwhelming violence unleashed against Gaza doesn't impact that decision space in Tehran.

>I was talking about a temporary solution that could save lives.

We've seen "temporary" displacement of Palestinians turn into permanent displacement often enough that no one is willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this again.

>We've seen that this does not work. Israel tried the route of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza - "honoring the '67 borders" - and they elected Hamas, which promptly started shooting rockets at Israel and spent the billions they receive in aid money building up attacks against Israel.

Aid money != domestic economic independence. It's the difference between teaching a man to fish, and giving him fish. These two things are not the same, so it is fallacious to say that this has been tried already. Would Hamas have been pissed off enough to shoot rockets into Israel if they were instead enriching the population by collecting revenue from...say...the Gaza Airport Terminal, which was the pride of the Palestinian people? Gee, what ever happened to the Gaza Airport? Oh right, it was completely razed by the IDF. With no indications there was any military necessity to doing so.

>But I agree with you completely - a negotiated two state solution is the only viable way forward. I just have no idea if it can actually be done.

Perhaps a massive UN peacekeeping force needs to man DMZs between Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, with large contributions from India and China (non-US, non-Muslim states interested in burnishing their global influence). Then implement a regional Armament Treaty for all involved parties/states. I would emphasize that all parties can maintain robust air-defense arsenals but are restricted on offensive strike systems: so the masses of Hezbollah rocket artillery needs to go away....but so does most of the IAF's fixed wing aircraft and large bombs. Israel needs to formally declare its nuclear arsenal and join the NPT. Basically make it so everyone doesn't really have the ability to do anything more than annoy each other. People will still die but we've got to get the violence back down to manageable levels so that economic development solutions can have an opportunity to bear fruit.

Even this is probably an unpalatable solution....I don't think Iran will tolerate a nuclear-armed Israel without having SOME means to make Israel think twice about using it. But it's a start.