I expect that many Jews probably knew that their chances against the might of Rome were less than excellent. As far the two Rabbis, its true. They can't both be right. They could of course, both be wrong, in theory. The Rabbi I was reading about described evidences that a tribe of Levites left Egypt at the time of the Exodus.
Well, if you think that we can't expect better out of people today than we could in 66 CE, then you ought not criticise Israel for its handling of Hamas. In fact, they are doing a remarkable job of trying to preserve civilian life, given that they throw leaflets, make phone calls, issue text messages, and roof knock to get people to leave before taking out buildings. It is Hamas that orders civilians to stay in buildings in spite of these warnings.
Please note that I am NOT saying that Israel is perfect. I am sure that mistakes are made. It is a war, and people are killed. That is unfortunate. I am sure some civilian sites have mistakenly been hit. This is sad, but is often unavoidable, especially when Hamas uses such places as sites for weapons storage, and as places to maintain rocket launchers from which they actually attack Israel. Using civilians as human shields makes them legitimate targets.
Given that America in the 18th Century actually had more human rights than any nation in history, I would say your commentary is silly, verging on the outright stupid. Although the goal, of course, is to widen suffrage, rather than restrict it, and this has been done both in America, Britain, and in other countries, if you look at the times, America was doing quite well. No nation in the world allowed women or non-whites to vote. In fact, except for Britain, no nation allowed anyone to vote, per se. France did to a certain degree, I suppose, but they kept moving from Republic to Empire to Kingdom to Republic again, so...