Israel and its supporters blithely state, as if it were plainly obvious, that the only side Hamas in particular and Palestinians writ large will respond to is naked force, i.e., violence. The irony they miss is that their war against Gaza is a response to Hamas’ terrorist attack of October 7th. You can be sure that, when Hamas’ leadership hatched their plans for that attack, they also believed that Israel would never respond to anything other than brute force. Dehumanization is not the kind of common ground needed in the Middle East or anywhere else.