The collective nouns seem reasonable in light of the widespread support in that country for the Israeli government's appalling military assault on the people of the Gaza Strip for the last five months. How can Israel — and its outside supporters — cheer on the bombings (compliments of coerced Americans), the ground attacks, the mass starvation, the terror, and the rest of the crimes that we witness every day? The death toll is pushing 31,000, most of them infants, children, women, and old men, not fighters. So many more have been disabled for life. Gazans — including newborns — lack food, good water, medical services and equipment, and drugs, including anesthesia. The humanitarian aid is a small fraction of what they need. So many have been driven from their homes, to which they'll never return because the buildings have been destroyed.

And there's no end in sight! Will it take the murder of the last Gazan for it to stop? For clear-eyed observers watching helplessly from afar, it is heartbreaking. We cannot even stop the Biden administration from sending bombs, bullets, and spare parts to Israel — without which this could not go on.

Those are human beings in Gaza, for heaven's sake! Stop the carnage!

Israel's supporters may think that uttering the word Hamas provides all the justification required. That can't be. Common-sense moral intuition possessed by virtually everyone says otherwise. Yes, Hamas committed horrible acts on Oct. 7. So this is the response? Mass death, injury, and destruction? Don't say, "What else could Israel do?" Being unable to think of something else to do is not a license to kill tens of thousands of infants, children, the infirm, the elderly, and the rest. That makes no sense.

Hamas was nothing before the late 1980s. Why hadn't Israel been willing to treat the Palestinians justly before that? Maybe we would have never heard of Hamas. But Israel encouraged Hamas, well before Netanyahu, because the Islamic organization was seen as a religious rival to the popular and secular PLO; hence Hamas could be used to split the Palestinians. Divide and rule. Advantage Israel.