I wrote a comment to another TPM thread, one which I think is worth keeping here.

The context was the crisis in Gaza.  The primary foil is the notion of "justified" in that article.  The substance of the comment is:

Mass murder is not a defensive action.

Justification is inherently anti-moral. That is, people justify their conduct BECAUSE it is not moral; they make excuses. Making excuses for anti-morality is itself immoral. Moral conduct needs no justification. What the Middle East needs is human morality, not partisan justification.

Hamas can be said to have provoked the Israeli mass murder war crimes which were clearly out of all proportion to the provocation. However, it's clear that Israel's intent had nothing to do with proportionality, rather it is closer to extermination regardless of the cost in life and with only regard to Public Relations of what it could justify in the way of "collateral damage". Further, Israel planned this over many months, just waiting for an excuse to "justify" its criminal behavior. So Israel is in the wrong here. While Hamas' rocket attacks are unfortunate on the small time frame scale, Israel's response is criminal.

The immorality of Hamas in no way justifies Israel's reactive immorality in this case.

Tough talk? Better than abusive PR. Cut the bull. A nation state is murdering people in Gaza because some "thugs" have been firing more or less impotent rockets into Israel. Are the "thugs" behaving morally? No. Can they justify their conduct? Duh, in their terms, yes. But they are of course, thugs, not a nation state.

Israel knows it has behaved immorally. Shame on Israel. Shame on Israelis who through greed or fear have blocked substantive peace processes in the past.

The rhetoric of Hamas can change. What Hamas needs, if not extermination, is a path to modify its extremist charter while not losing face. When the rhetoric of Hamas changes, Israel will have lost one justification for its immoral conduct. It will then have a political opening.

Israel needs to learn a Christian lesson it may know about but has not embraced effectively for far too many years. Israel needs to act with greatness instead of with raw power.

Hamas needs to stop thinking of itself as weak thugs, and step up too, or be exterminated.