Yeah, you're quite mistaken, and you're projecting. You're the partisan here, not me.
Perhaps the most telling thing I've written on the Israel-Palestine issue is the intro to the article below, where I point out why I don't care so much about this issue. The problem is intractable because the Arab world is relatively medieval and is full of anti-Jewish sentiment. The hostile environment turned Israel into a pragmatic, ruthless (albeit relatively moral and restrained) superpower. But peace is impossible in the region until the Arab world is modernized (secularized) and re-educated.
The notion that I need to hear that Hamas is a pack of savages is ludicrous. I've said in my articles that they're medieval barbarians and religious fundamentalists, and that their charter says they want to kill all Israeli Jews and don't accept Israel's right to exist.
Again, I'm not the partisan here. I've criticized both sides, although mainly I've defended Israel because that's how I see it. But despite being Jewish, I don't care much about this issue because it won't change in my lifetime--unless the Arab world goes through an Arab Spring times a thousand, which is unlikely.
But to address your earlier point, I'm sure you're correct that the IDF isn't generally interested in killing civilians. That could be mainly for pragmatic reasons since they know it's a bad look for them, and they want to appear to have the moral high ground. They also happen to have that high ground because, as I've written, Judaism has been modernized whereas Islam hasn't.
Still, the calculation is apparent, and the proof is in the pudding. Israel has chosen to "destroy" Hamas's ability to perpetrate similar terrorist attacks. And knowing that Hamas hides among the civilians, Israel has decided to go ahead with that mission, knowing that its military will inevitably kill far more civilians than terrorists. That decision isn't purely a humanitarian one, is it? As you said, Israel cares more about its people than foreigners--just as all governments are charged not with protecting all of humanity but mainly their respective citizens.
The appeal to "reason" doesn't help because reason alone doesn't make moral judgments. That's a question of values or of attitude, and right after the Oct 7 pogrom, the IDF wasn't likely in a dispassionate state of mind.
I'm no military strategist, but maybe instead of bombing the hell out of Palestinian civilians to hunt for low-level, easily replaced Hamas operatives and equipment, Israel could have assassinated Hamas's leaders in Qatar? Wouldn't Israel have been in a better place in terms of the propaganda war if it had done just that?
