Political Memes

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.

in that case, the same thing from.the other side though. That attack was just retaliation. How long do you continue with an eye for an ~~eye~~ face? Blowback...

The only sane outcomes is to say doing more of the same will lead to worse atrocities and do something different. All this is retaliation is going to do is make it worse.

look at the Iran thing, lot of conservatives say they're worried Iran will build a nuke and sail it into Manhattan.. why are they worried about that ? what is it they've done to Iran over many decades that they think that's a possible retaliatory outcome ?

That's the eternal question. Too much retaliation isn't just immoral, it's tactically foolish. You horrify your allies and incite revenge. Too little on the other hand and you don't deter.

While I think we should have gone harder in punishment to the active members of the axis governments, I think the post WW2 rebuilding is probably best. Leaders and propagandists are targeted and punished and there's a period of hardship, but you help them rebuild while pressing them towards a less destructive attitude towards you.

The only way to kill your way to peace is to kill everyone. Real peace requires creating an environment where enough of both sides want peace and violence isn't worth it.

It's pretty obvious innit? Targeted counter terror operations. Use the considerable power and expertise available to the government to bring those responsible to justice without demolishing the whole country. Like America should've done (and eventually did) with bin Laden, instead of invading the countries next door for over a decade.
I mean that's what I would do, but to answer more broadly, I think the maximum amount should definitely be constrained to what is legal.