Well, for Israel, they have a deep-seated teaching of their culture that straight up tells them what is the appropriate amount of retaliation: it’s called the Torah. All these “ultra-Orthodox” people in the Kinesset should know what their Bible says about retaliation. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This law actually is intended to place limits on retaliation in that one is only owed what has been taken–with many rabbis seeing it as a means for financial compensation. As I understand it, in places like Egypt (where, according to tradition, Israel’s forebears were exploited workers, basically slaves) had an unbalanced legal system that allowed for disproportionate retaliation (“you took my eye? Well now your family is dead”), especially as applied for aristocratic types. But the Torah was presented as universally applicable to every Jew.

So, leveling Gaza is disproportionate retaliation according to the very law they claim God Himself gave them.