The most dangerous regimes in the world are the ones with cunning. Putin is a perfect example of this, and the puppet masters in Iran is another one. Those with cunning create “heads I win / tails I lose” situations.
October 7th was a disgusting and abysmal master stroke by an evil regime. Given the severe death toll and the abject depravity against a solely civilian target and objective, not to mention the hostages (don’t get me started about Hamas’s continued issue giving accurate count of a few hundred / dozens of hostages over months, but able to get death totals to the last child 5 seconds after an attack), there was no reasonable nor rationale way for Israel not to retaliate massively nor for them to be able to stomach Hamas being in control and entrenched on their door step. To refrain from dealing with those two things would not only be a travesty no other country would stomach, but one I don’t believe the Israeli people would stand for. AND YET, given the propaganda talents of those directly or ideologically aligned with Hamas and the general view point of much of the world as it relates to Israel, and given the US public’s inability to truly stand by any sort of large scale or long term conflict in a strong and positive way, and given the realities of how a war against Hamas would need to be enacted, it was almost a guarantee that if Israel did what the first option required that they would damage their relationship with the world and potentially the US. Especially with a democrat president in an election year that appears to be a close race.
Either Israel has a devastating and disgusting attack on it but doesn’t respond in the rational and reasonable fashion that any normal country would react, thus angering its population, emboldening future attacks, and leaving a barbaric enemy on its borders.
OR
Israel retaliates and does the actions needed to end Hamas as a legitimate power in Gaza and craters their already tenuous standing on the world stage and drive a severe wedge into the alliance with their strongest and most important ally
Heads Hamas wins. Tails Israel loses.
Horrible, evil, genius cunning and strategy.