CWB,
Understand and agree to an extent with your sentiments. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all live in harmony (I wouldn't have a job mind you, but I am sure I could find something to do). However, I guess that like a few others I am a little more cynical.
I don't believe that the human race is ready willing or able to accept peace at this point in its evolution, there will be wars long after we and our children are gone. This problem is not going away. If we appease the Palestinians and come down hard on the Israeli's there will be other, cultural, political or religious issues that take over and the cycle of violence will continue.
I realise that revenge/retribution, whatever you want to call it is unlikely to stop this from happening again, and it certainly won't stop the extremists, but what else can you do? When you go into a war you really shouldn't expect the opposition to lie down and surrender, we wouldn't, so we should be in no doubt that this is going to take some time. That doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't fight. At some point you have to stand up and fight back. I'm not really arguing with your points, I just don't think that we have a choice than to hit back hard.
Unfortunately, as you say, the violence then continues and innocents will continue to be killed. Its a mess and thats beyond doubt, I can't think of an answer. God (Christian, Muslim, Jewish) help us all.