Even if your super neutral about this:

Israel killed their head of state, so wouldn’t this be fair game?

Is anyone claiming that this isn’t a reasonable stance for them to take?

Like, plenty of people I’m sure don’t want them to succeed, but I don’t think anyone is a shocked Pikachu that they want to.

Iran hasn’t been historically shy about calling for people’s deaths, and as you say, their head of state was just killed. Of course they want to retaliate. That is the natural and expected thing for them to want.

It may or may not be a good thing if they’re able to succeed, depending on your perspective. But I don’t think anyone thinks it would be an “unfair” thing of them to do.

Why don’t you want them to succeed with killing Netanyahu? Steven Universe reasons?

I didn’t say that, for one. For two, I have no idea what “Stephen Universe reasons” means.

In general, I don’t cheer for escalation in the Middle East. I think bombing Iran was bad. I think bombing Israel would also be bad. I can agree that Netanyahu is bad without championing for more bombs.

The ideal would be that he is removed from office and tried for war crimes. Not that we have a continuing and escalating war.

I think bombing Israel would also be bad.

Why?

Bombings are always the result of failure. Violence is the final refuge of the incompetent. Sometimes necessary certainly, but never correct with appropriate foresight.

And revenge being the reason behind any action is foolish. It’s like making the focus of prison punishment instead of rehabilitation. When you drop bombs, it should be with particular policy goals in mind.

I also think that it would be preferable if things in the Middle East got calmer, not more escalated. If I had the choice between less violence there and more, I will certainly chose the less.

So, we then have to define what we mean by “bombing Israel.” Wanton bombing I can see no argument for that isn’t simply punitive, which is clearly bad under the aforementioned criteria.

There may be an argument for a targeted strike to just target Netanyahu. You have to ask yourself what the goals and effects of such a strike would be. I think it is unlikely to greatly change Israel’s posture. Netanyahu is unpopular domestically, as is this war, but the nation of Israel has a history of rallying around martyrs that would probably overwhelm any gains by having Netanyahu out of the picture. This would also likely lead towards an even greater retaliatory strike against Iran (which, again, would also be bad.)

So what’s the benefit of bombing Israel other than “it makes me feel good to hurt a bad guy”? Why is it actually good?

Some violence is self defense, like in this case. It may not be our favorite thing, but if you’re up against fascists in power the only thing that can stop them is violence. If you don’t, you’re just letting them genocide literally everyone they want, which isn’t just extremely cruel and abominable, but it’s also stupid, as the enemy of the state is a moving target and for every genocide they accomplish they move on to the next. It’s a matter of time until you or your loved ones are declared the enemy. What then? How can you resist genocidal violence if not with self-defense?

I didn’t say violence was always wrong. I said it was always the result of failure. There are of course plenty of times when violence is justified.

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the country that was bombed literally murdered forty thousand protesters in the past month. To put that in perspective, the total number of protesters deaths in Minneapolis is under ten, and that’s a hugely tragic situation. And the leaders who ordered those forty thousand people murdered are the ones who were just blown up in that bomb strike.

And I’m still saying the bombing in Iran was a bad thing.

If the goal was regime change (which is a noble pursuit here in the same way it would be a noble pursuit to work to unseat Netanyahu), Iran was already well on its way to that, and there are dozens of things the US could have done to push for that without escalating to a full scale kinetic war. The bombing, if anything, is regressive to those goals.

And to your final point, yes, there comes a time when a situation has deteriorated to the point that there is some actor that is an existential threat to one or more people groups and the only mechanism to stop them is violence. There’s an argument that literally either side of this conflict represents one of those existential threats. But I’m unconvinced that any have progressed past the point of intervention via non-violent means.

Which is why I asked earlier “why is it a good idea to bomb Israel,” as so far the best answer I’ve gotten is “because Israel is bad,” which isn’t a reason. If that’s the standard, I’ve got a list of about 20 countries to give you that were gonna have to bomb as well. If it’s “we need to bomb countries that are conducting genocide,” then there’s a list of about half that we need to be actively bombing.

Genocide is bad and needs to be stopped. That goes without saying, obviously. But the answer isn’t just “have the US bomb every country that’s perpetrating a genocide.” It turns out that that will often do more harm than good, and sometimes there are more effective “non-bomb” solutions that will do much more in the long run. Even if “bombing the bad people makes the lizard brain feel good.”