Today the count of civilians killed by Israel in their fight against Hamas is approaching 20,000. That number is more than one third as many as was killed by the first incendiary attack on Tokyo. It is about the same fraction as the intended experiment in creating a firestorm when we and the British bombed Dresden.

In Dresden people in the underground bomb shelters were suffocated when the raging fire burned up all the oxygen. The fire’s heat created a suction so strong fleeing people were pulled off their feet and into the flames from blocks away.

In the United States we put all ethnic Japanese in what were really concentration camps. Germans with the same skin color as the rest of the Americans were ostracized in most of the country. Long after the war both ethnics were “not good Americans” in my home county.

Advance the morals to 2023 and now it is terrible to bomb apartments killing Palestinians in Gaza. On a smaller scale than World War II, is Israel justified in killing people forced to live in the congested strip of land? Remember Israel exists on the former Palestinian land because the Israelis bulldozed the homes generations had lived in and destroyed their fields and groves so they had no choice but leave. Will killing thousands pacify the Palestinians or cause them to hate Israel even more, causing Hamas and other groups to get more support?

More and more people around the world are turning against Israel’s tactics and siding with the Palestinians. Israel is trying to wipe out Hamas with minimal loss of their soldiers. That means, as one cabinet member said, “Killing all the vermin.”