I suspect most Israelis think differently. Even if "the arabs in the region are bad at fighting" they still outnumber the Israeli population by something like 20 to 40 times, depending on how you count. About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
EDIT: There are a couple of axes that helped me get a broader perspective:
1. Whether one supports Israel's continued existence
2. Whether one believes Israel's continued existence is guaranteed
Having started about midway between yes and no on 1, and at yes on 2, it was extremely enlightening to reinterpret my observations from the point of view of yes on 1 and no on 2. All Israeli behaviour that I had previously found incomprehensible finally made sense.
> About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
During a surprise attack.
The conflict that was started by Oct 7, according to Wikipedia, has seen 81,526+ dead on the Palestinian and associated side*, vs. 2,053 on the Israeli side.
That said, from the point of view of your edit: the ratio is irrelevant when someone's convinced they're facing an existential threat. Given Oct 7 was proportionally worse for Israel than 9/11 was for the USA, and the USA didn't seem to stop justifying everything through that lens for about a decade afterwards… it's going to suck for everyone that Israel thinks is so much as looking at them funny. (That isn't a joke even if it sounds like one: the people who see Israel as their home and their safe-space are collectively likely to be hyper-vigilant, to their own cost, in this kind of way, for a long time).
* With the footnote that '"Indirect" deaths may be multiple times higher' and 'In addition to direct deaths, armed conflicts result in indirect deaths "attributable to the conflict". Mortality due to indirect deaths could be due to a variety of causes, such as infectious diseases.[27] Indirect deaths range from three to fifteen times the number of direct deaths in recent conflicts.[28] In Gaza, estimated 51,000 natural deaths, natural death rate has gone up from 3.5/1000 to 22/1000 (late June 2024)[29]'
Yes indeed, I'm talking about the surprise attack phase. (Israel has experienced a surprise attack before that has put its continued existence in question: the Yom Kippur war.) And in fact, looking at
In any case, Israel is surrounded by a hostile population of hundreds of millions (yes, still hostile despite the cold peace treaty it has with Egypt and the lukewarm one it has with Jordan), and it itself numbers about 10 million. So it is outnumbered by double figures to one.
I certainly don't see Israel's continued existence as guaranteed despite "nukes" and despite "American support" and despite having the "nth most powerful army in the world". And that point of view has helped me to understand the conflict like no other explanation.
EDIT: There are a couple of axes that helped me get a broader perspective:
1. Whether one supports Israel's continued existence 2. Whether one believes Israel's continued existence is guaranteed
Having started about midway between yes and no on 1, and at yes on 2, it was extremely enlightening to reinterpret my observations from the point of view of yes on 1 and no on 2. All Israeli behaviour that I had previously found incomprehensible finally made sense.