Hello Radia. These are good questions and I shall tell you why - my article isn't about the numbers or about international law, it is about the oversimplification of the arguments and the funnelling of people into particular camps of thoughts without ever checking the evidence to the contrary.

Any numbers will be disputed, any law thrown in will be immediately challenged by someone on the other side. I am not conflating Hamas and Palestine, but since 2006 they have been the elected representatives of the Gaza strip. We have been on a fairly downhill trajectory since the Oslo Accords, with the Israeli's bringing in a right-wing hawk as a result of the 1990s actions after the Oslo accords. Errors were made on both sides (in my opinion) and have been since the Brits and Balfour.

The short answer is no. I don't think this started on October 7th.... my previous article is two years old anyway - making such an assertion redundant. What I do think is that both sides have gone through a process of dehumanising the other which is both terrifying and sad in equal measure. You are very likely (I'm inferring) to favour one side of this conflict over the other. That may be because a) you're right or b) because you're wrong or, as I think is usually the case, c) you have funnelled your thinking through confirmation bias fuelled by media. I'm not on either side, the history is too complex for me to wade in and it adds nothing to the conversation.

And yes, I wrote about the complexity of the second world war in my last article, I think think there are similarities. https://medium.com/p/c386fbd78166