The first victim of war is the death toll and the misery inflicted on non-combatants. Stay grounded rather than trying to be over-clever. You might care to consult a good dictionary as to the meaning of "facile."

Netanyahu is facing a dilemma. Go ahead with your ground invasion and thousands of civilians will die just as horribly as Israelis did at the hands of Hamas. Don't do it and he looks feeble, not least because of the apocalyptic threats he's already made. He's in trouble already at home because he failed to see this coming and he thinks he needs the invasion to shore himself up. A bloody invasion, and it will be bloody because Hamas are ready, is likely to lose him most of the (undeserved) respect in the west he currently enjoys. Hamas don't care about reputations because their only allies are steeped in unshakeable shit-on-the-west ideology. It's so easy for western leaders to rattle on about the heinous crimes of Hamas (and they are heinous, we see it graphically on our screens constantly and we don't need them to keep telling us that) and how they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, conveniently ignoring the whole of history since 1948. I've yet to see a single wise head that can have any influence. If there's a God, he isn't in Israel or Gaza.