I mean, this really should be the bare minimum requirement for forming an opinion or commenting on something, no? 😅 But yes, I'm glad you did too. Lots of people obviously didn't.

And yes, Netanyahu has rejected a two-state solution. I don't think Hamas have explicitly done the same. But regardless, as I say in the article, I don't think Netanyahu or Hamas can be trusted to be part of a peace process. Both very clearly have the elimination of the other as their core aim.

Also, it's endlessly fascinating to me how Israel's defenders remove all agency from Israel. Yes, you're right, Hamas' plan depended on a wildly disproportionate, horrendously savage response from Israel. They needed images of children blown apart by Israeli bombs, they needed thousands of Palestinians to be "martyred," they hoped for, but probably never dreamed they would get so much of, the genocidal rhetoric from the Israeli government and the IDF, because this would all draw the world to more closely scrutinise Israel's actions.

But you do realise that Israel could just have...not done any of that. You talk as if after the Hamas attack, the utter brutality of Israel's response was as inevitable as the rising of the sun. As if it's obvious that anybody would kill 37,000 people after a terrorist attack. It isn't. There is a vast arena of options between "common genocide" and "do nothing."

And, of course, Israel had several options to prevent October 7th before it happened, including not funding and supporting Hamas at its inception in an attempt to destabilise Gazan leadership, not ignoring over a year's worth of warnings that the October 7th attack was coming, and cleanest of all, not spending decades illegally oppressing the Palestinian people, thereby inevitably fomenting violent extremism.

Lastly, if you think the violence that's taken place over the years has predominantly committed by Palestinians, you haven't been paying attention. You're right, October 7th didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened against the backdrop of decades of violent Israeli aggression and international law violations, both from the IDF and from Israeli settlers. But the violence is so constant it's become mundane and therefore rarely makes the news. Just as, for example, it didn't make the news when a slaveowner beat his slaves.

Nat Turner's rebellion very obviously didn't take place in a vacuum either. Not at all sure what you're trying to say there.