Every human life loss is terrible. Yet collateral damage is unavoidable in our survival project of eradicating terrorism and the Islamist Nazism. I am against any killing, including killing of murderers, unless killing them prevents them from killing others. I grieve for the collateral loss of life of Gazan civilians, many of whom are not murderers, and many of whom are children too young to be even blamed for Hamas' support. All efforts must be made to minimize the collateral damage, but Islamist Nazism must be destroyed before it destroys the Jewish People (and, thereafter, Christendom).

I am a pacifist, with the exception of fighting back against genocide. IDF takes high precautions to protect bystanders; in the past, Israel was taking extreme precautions to the degree that it was not practically possible to prevent Hamas rocket launching; in the present war, those precautions have been slightly relaxed because we are in a survival war against genocide and because Hamas is purposefully placing its attack infrastructure among the most vulnerable civilians. Yet, the collateral damage often quoted by the world press comes from figures supplied by Hamas, which are always a lie; and furthermore, the press reports do not differentiate between the damage inflicted by Israeli bombing and the major damage inflicted on Gazans by Gazan own rockets, some 10 to 30% percent of which “misfire,” i.e., do not reach Israel but explode in Gaza. Their “misfired” rockets' damage to Gaza is much greater than their rocket's damage to Israel because Israel has the Iron Dome and advanced bomb shelters (such as a bomb shelter room embedded in most apartments).

For those who say that Israel is occupying Gaza - yes, Israel has been occupying parts of Gaza since mid-October 2023. From 2005 to 2023, Gaza was a de-facto independent state after Israel completely withdrew from Gaza, and then Gazans elected Hamas as their government, running on the platform of the “Final Solution” for the Jews in Israel. While Israel and Egypt had export controls into Gaza (to reduce the military buildup of Hamas), Israel was providing electricity and water out of humanitarian concerns but certainly is not obligated to do so (this is what the press calls an Israeli “blockade,” not mentioning that Gaza has also border with Egypt). As much as I supported the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and uprooting of every Jew from Gaza (for a hefty compensation by the Israeli taxpayer), I now realize that this experiment with Palestinian statehood was an utter failure.

It does not mean that in the future, some other modality of Palestinian statehood cannot be feasible.    There is no intrinsic right for Palestinian statehood because the notion of the Palestinian nation is merely an Arab terrorists' invention in 1967.    Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt, respectively, in a defensive survival war.    Those territories were offered by the UN in 1947 for a future Arab state; Israel accepted the offer, but the Arab countries refused the UN offer and attacked Israel in 1948, capturing and annexing the West Bank and Gaza.    Israel intended to hold the 1967-occupied territories until they could be exchanged for peace; but Jordan and Egypt no longer want those territories.     Now, a practical solution could be to create a new Arab state in the West Bank in Gaza and call it the Palestinian State, if that state can live in peace with Israel.    There is no peace partner at present.    Once there is one, and Israeli security could be guaranteed, I would favor that in exchange for peace, Israel evacuates all Jews from the West Bank, renounces all historical, Biblical, and real estate ownership claims to the West Bank and Gaza, and throws in a trillion dollars as seed fund for a peaceful Palestinian potentially-prosperous neighbor state.

2023-11-01, Naphtali Rishe