Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
Tim, you are babbling. The argument is not whether Israel "had to" kill civilians or target civilian buildings in the way that they did. They chose to. For example, they did not "have to" bomb the media building housing the Associated Press. It was part of a strategic response. If you're going to argue that they are not justified in doing that because they didn't have to, you cannot justify any strategic response. So, you move up a level and discuss what of their choices (none of which they "have to" take by definition) are jusified and what are not and why. My approach has been to try to short circuit the intuitive support for Israel's actions based on an analogy that tends to evoke a different intuitive response but, in substance, is similar. If we take away the words "Israel", "the IRA", "Hamas", "the Irish", "The Palestinians" etc, we maybe meet in the middle and at least agree that you need more than "party A once used a building for some unspecified military purpose" to justify party B bombing and killing innocent civilians in party A's community who happen to be in that building. Can we get that much common ground?