There is a lot that Western non-Jews don't understand about Israel. As a kid of the 60's and 70's, I grew up reading Leon Uris and thinking Golda Meir was a saint. I've since come to realize it is way more complicated, but the narratives have only become much more black and white.

Culture might see good and bad as some cosmic conflict between the forces of righteousness and evil, but to nature, it's the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The1/0 of sentience.

So while culture is about the stories we tell the children to get them to cooperate, nature is some enormous computer, that doesn't always come up with te answers we want to hear.

So while the details might go on for more than anyone here wants to hear, my sense is Israel is going to learn all about the term, "Phyrric Victory" in the coming years and all her cheerleaders are either going to have to go back and heal the wound in the Jewish soul, or be part of the scab left in the history books.

There are reasons why one might, "Turn the other cheek."

Our brains evolved out of dealing with the problems and this is going to be a serious learning experience.

There are centripetal and centrifugal forces in every society, conservative, liberal, young, old, etc and it was evident that very religiously conservative side of Israel and her very liberal cosmopolitain side were starting to pull the country apart, before Oct 7th and while the basic tribalism has pulled them back together, it isn't going away. That 2000 year gap in the evolution of the state is sorely missed.

For those who forget, Ancient Israel was a monarchy. Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures. All the various ideals, metaphors, memes, that gods represented to the Ancients, circulating in the mix. To the Ancients, monotheism amounted to monoculture. One people, one rule, on god.

The evolutionary stages Christianity and Islam played, were to try to get beyond the core tribalism, as the populations became ever more dense and had to work across those lines.

"Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you."