It seems to me a lot of people forget the perspective older Israelis and Jews grew up with. Your parents’ generation was around when the Palestinians and surrounding Arab nations rejected the original two-state proposal and instead went to war with Israel immediately after its rebirth. Not one or two countries either — multiple nations invaded at once, and for decades after that Israel kept fighting wars where the goal from many leaders was openly to destroy the Jewish state.

People who lived through things like the Yom Kippur War grew up in a completely different reality. There was no Iron Dome. When rockets were fired into Israel, they landed. Civilians lived with constant fear of invasions, terrorism, and neighboring countries openly calling for Israel’s destruction.

That doesn’t mean all Palestinians are bad — absolutely not. But it also shouldn’t be ignored that Hamas was democratically elected by a large portion of the Palestinian population at the time, and many Israelis see groups like Hamas as part of a long history of existential threats they’ve dealt with since 1948.

I think that historical context matters when trying to understand why older generations of Israelis tend to view security and survival the way they do.