They don't need to destroy every terrorist in the middle east. They just need to destroy every active terrorist in Gaza, the West Bank, and anywhere else that the world seems to think doesn't count as a nation that can commit acts of war.
If they succeed, I'll reevaluate my position
If they don't, that neither means they didn't have a right to try nor does it mean any other particular strategy would have succeeded given the same investment of resources and/or sacrifice of civility.
I see little reason to believe that Israel is willing to invest enough resources to take over and govern the West Bank (if they don't, there will be more terrorists).
Yes you are certainly correct that if they do not there will be more terrorists. They will simply slip out into barely governed territory (the deserts of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, etc...), wait for things to calm down, come back in, and launch more attacks.
It is the territory itself that is the problem. It's like the high-seas were 16th to 19th centuries, a place where privateers can just attack people and the country that built the ship shrugs. The solution then was to patrol the seas and deny them any port, and that is the solution here. Occupation is absolute necessity.
Counter-bombing didn't stop the attacks, it infuriated the enemy
Israel is counter-bombing right now, that's where most of the criticism against them is coming from.
Criticism is coming from irrational hatred combined with naive and blind support of any Muslim agenda. Every other country does the same or worse for far lesser offenses. The United States built tomahawk missile has long been obsolete weapon in fighting major conventional enemies and exist and is used solely as a means of precisely bombing people who piss off the deep state.
Where are the critics there? Oh right they're warmongers so long as their side is the one doing the bombing, or to be more accurate they're war mongers when the puppet press tells them bad guys are being bombed.
D-day made Britain safe again and it was the only permanent solution.
So Israel should draft and sacrifice a huge portion of its own population? That would be the equivalent of D-day.
If necessary, but it isn't necessary.
Hamas is easier to defend against but too spread out to completely destroy.
The liars say that Gaza is 'an open air prison' because Israel tries to keep advanced weapons out of the hands of Hamas by monitoring the borders. That lie is used to justify raping people.
That is not a solution.
And even if they were completely eliminated, there's no guarantee we wouldn't see an equivalent terrorist group rise up.
If that terrorist group doesn't have the international legal magic of the psuedonations to launch unprovoked and unavenged attacks from they can sit and stew.
Stopping terrorists from sneaking in to commit terrorist attacks is a problem that all nations especially Israel already have to deal with. The reason children are starving in Gaza is because that is not the only thing Israel has to deal with. They have to deal with terrorists launching artillery from heavily populated urban centers.
So maybe if you are decades ahead and spend a 100 times more than your enemy you can keep them from harming you without killing them, but what a ridiculous idea that a nation ought or must commit to that?
Israel is already spending a huge amount, and missile defense is a tiny fraction of its budget.
It will never be cheaper to intercept a missile than it is to build a missile. You either need a missile with superior maneuverability, sensors, and guidance or you need a very accurate very powerful laser weapon that will cost more than tens of thousands of missiles and once you invest in all that they will simply switch to another very cheap form of attack. Such as digging tunnels and planting mines. Such as the 10/7 invasion.
What if they switch from rocket artillery to gun artillery? Now make it a high velocity gun at a shallow angle. Then neither interceptor missiles nor laser weapons will be enough.
If they haven't invested a huge amount into anti-missile systems that only means they understand war better than you appear to. It would be a wasted investment soon enough and if the enemy can force you to keep wasting a 100 times more eventually you will run out of resources.
Again: The idea of a perfect defense has always been fundamentally flawed and the only reason an imperfect facsimile appears feasible in the context is the vast economic and technological difference between Israel and the terrorists.
What happens when someone a little richer starts helping the terrorists? Actually that is apparently already happening with Iran.
So we get a bloodless Cold War instead of a bloodbath.
What is bloodless about constant attacks on Israel, many of which succeeded at killing people and would succeed more without the rapid counterattacks?
It would be a bloodless cold war between Israel and Iran IF Israel occupies the attack vectors so that Iran can't attack without giving Israel the right to strike at their homeland infrastructure.
What is making it a very bloody spending war is that Iran can have their weapons and blood money used without watching their civilization crumble.
Not to mention that aggressive measures give more countries reason to oppose Israel,
Appeasing the insane is impossible so there is no reason to factor in hopeless attempts to do so.
You can throw lives at the problem or money at the problem, and only one of those makes the world go round.
You can waste both if you refuse to win the war or use a failing strategy.
Spending becomes tit-for-tat, though. If Iran spends money on missiles and all of them get shot down, why would they keep spending money on missiles?
If their missiles cost $1000 and the Israelis have to spend $100,000 for every missile shot down they would keep building those missiles because Israel will run out of money first.
That translates to loss of quality of life BTW.
Or Iran could make better missiles, and maybe a $10,000 missile can still get through a $100,000/missile defense screen from time to time. Still winning economically but now also killing people.
The allied bombing campaign over nazi germany would never have defeated germany alone but it forced, at least politically, a huge investment of resources in air defense. It was not wasted money even if it didn't work as well as some would have hoped.
multiple Muslim nations descended on Israel with conventional armies
This is way more likely to happen if Israel continues shooting missiles that result in civilian casualties.
Then rip off the bandaid. You don't need to drop bombs when you occupy the region.
Hamas barely won more seats than Fatah in 2006, and it was widely known that Hamas was a terrorist organization. In other words, there would be no October 7th if just 10% more of the population in Palestine has opposed Hamas in 2006.
Do you think that the general population supports Hamas more now than they did?
Logically one would say that Hamas started a war (via very immoral means) and that war cost much suffering so that was the wrong choice, but humans aren't exactly rational; especially around war.
Humans get angry, want revenge; but voting for Hamas is voting to genocide Israel so if they are going to attack you anyway there is no avoiding making them angry. You have to go all the way. Win the war. Wars are won when there is nothing but despair in the hearts of the enemy and the enemy is everyone who voted for Hamas.
It's the first case I can think of where a government could reliably protect many of its citizens without the uncertainty of war.
With respect to you as a person, that is a delusional statement.
People launching warhead tipped missiles at your country IS by definition WAR.
I don't know what kind of twisted propaganda has led you to a thought process where you thought random artillery strikes was a state of peace, lacking the uncertainty of war, but it's a frightening thing to see a person believe.
