Tom, you are always welcome and are a wonderful poster; thank you for your compliment. I agree, Israel does not have a leg to stand on, nor did it have a leg to stand on in 2006 as you rightly pointed out on your post. THe Arabs have a saying that I think you may like, Tom: Insha Allah - it means “God willing.” With everything said about the attack in Gaza, about the reparations of Palestinians and the reuniting of them with their land, with the oppression they suffer under, with the ignorance and fear they are met with when facing Western (pro-Zionist) media, they preface all their hopes with “Insha Allah;” their hope is mingled with a fatalism that has become ingrained in their daily lives. They hope for Democracy, but fear it will never come. They hope for peace, but fear Israel will actively seek to destroy it. They hope for security, but fear that what they will receive instead is brutal dictatorships from their governments.
I did want to add something that I forgot to about your post - you are spot on about Hamas not being RELIGIOUSLY ideological, but they are ideologically driven in the same vein as the Ba’athist party in Iraq and Syria. Their nationalism is the nationalism of the IRA, ETA, and PKK; that is, a sovereign national state taken by force, using terror tactics against a larger foe while providing basic necessities to their people (who are actually their clients). All Israel is doing is making the case for Hamas - if Israel was smart, they’d change tactics. But they’re not smart; they’re ideologically-driven as well and though others may scoff at the idea, I would dare say that Israel is well on its way to another Holocaust; this time with them as the aggressors and it will be one in which Muslims are the victoms.

Thanks for your post and for the link to your longer post; it was an interesting read. I do have to disagree with you on certain points; Hamas did fire rockets prior to the Israeli invasion, according to al-Jazeera - though they do make the point (and one that should be repeated loudly here in the US) that the rockets were home-made and woefully inaccurate. Israel is absolutely obfuscating its neoconservatively evil motivations with this invasion; why else would they consistently target relief convoys operating under the clearly-marked and coordinated banners of UNRWA and Red Cross/Red Crescent? It is part of the escalation of killing Muslims to gain more land, most Arabs believe and there seems to be no evidence to disprove their ideas.
Thanks again for the post and I am always glad to hear others’ opinions and insight.

Actually, the least bad option would be to withdraw from Gaza, start treating the Palestinians in the West Bank better by dismantling the settlements they’ve been building there, affording the PA authority, and investing in the Palestinians’ future in the West Bank. Not only will that undermine Hamas, it will set the PA up as an interested party in peace and security. Currently, the cycle of terror works this way; Hamas terrorists operate hospitals, schools, and food services for the Palestinians (who are, naturally, grateful considering Israel destroys the infrastructure [sewers, water, electricity, etc.] every year or so) AND they spread their message of “our way is the only way.” Life improves for Palestinians who then start to consider “maybe Hamas ain’t the best for me.” Hamas then fires rockets into Israel to provoke an Israeli military response, which the Israelis oblige them with. Hamas knows they have no way of beating Israel conventionally, so they do it to make Israel kill innocent civilians (which they do, no matter how they spin it - 30 children at a UN-run school, for instance). Then Hamas points to the bloody bodies of children killed at school, the legless old women mangled by US-made Israeli bombs, and the fatherless families left bereft by Israeli tanks and say “See? every time we help you, Israel destroys what we built for you [schools, hospitals, etc] and now they’ve made martyrs out of your sons, daughters, and cousins.” Hamas then gets a fresh infusion of willing idealogues - what else would you do if all you had to go back to was muddy streets, stone age infrastructure and the possibility that you could die sitting in your living room being a non-combatant? Then Hamas rebuilds hospitals, schools, etc. and the cycle starts all over again.
I know America and American politicians LOVE to draw comparisons (what if Tiajuana were firing rockets into San Diego, or Cuba firing rockets into Florida, or Vancouver firing rockets into Washington, etc.) but the truth is, it’s not like that at all - Americans would have to be building houses, enclaves, and outposts in Tiajuana/Cuba/Vancouver and then having the US military support them against angry Mexicans/Cubans/Canadians IN ADDITION to destroying Mexico’s/Cuba’s/Canada’s infrastructure, killing innocent civilians, and all the while citing Biblical verse as justification.
No matter how may dead “heads of Hamas” they kill, there will always be a lieutenant or other leader who seizes the opportunity of the boss’ death to make himself overlord of Hamas (even if for just a while).
The lesson here is that violence, especially in the Middle East, solves nothing and creates more problems than it solves; ask Marine and Army commanders who, until 2007, were fighting Sunnis, Shi’as, and Kurds - they will unequivocally tell you that political agreements and Tribal loyalty will work far, far better than all of America’s M16s, M1 Abrams, or JSF fighters.

Thanks for the questions and comments. No, it’s not just Americans saying that Hamas has ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, it’s Ahmedinijad when he refers to Iran’s “brothers” fighting Israel - money is usually funneled in to Hamas and Hezb Allah through various intermediaries. That is part of the reason that Hamas isn’t too well liked by most Arab governments and most Arabs outside of Palestine. Hamas is hated by its former bosses, the Muslim Brotherhood, it is hated by Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and it is hated even by al Qaeda (as evidenced by the relative silence from Ayman al Zawahiri on this subject, where normally they’d cheer the deaths of Israelis and encourage the fight as happened in Lebanon in 2006). Hamas is extremely ideologically-driven and because they have no physical proximity to Iran, but do to Israel, Iran is more than willing to help prop Hamas up because it annoys the United States and Israel. I’d imagine that once Obama gets into office and Iran has its elections, there will be a more quiet, centrist face put forward by the Ayatollah and the clergy of Iran.
What you say about Iran is true; they have not been the aggressor since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That being said, they learned a thing or two from the CIA; interference by proxy costs the nation almost nothing (except money) and inconveniences the enemy - they were front-row spectators of Afghanistan as well as pawns against the Soviet Union and Russia at the hands of the U.S. and Britain, respectively, afterall.
In the end, the more Hamas goads Israel into this kind of overwhelming belligerence, and as long as the Bush administration (and Democrats, let us not forget) are willing to turn a blind eye, then Iran wins; dead Sunni Palestinians, Hamas takes the fall and becomes an even more visible “bad guy” in the region, Israel gets blamed for thousands of innocent Palestinian deaths, and the U.S. looks like it couldn’t give a rat’s ass less about Arab or Muslim lives - it’s a win-win-win-win for Iran and the Iranian message.

Funny thing, I was talking to a former attache to the U.S. mission in Bahrain (who was recruiting me to join the State department a year back) and he said that when he went over to the Gulf in the 1980’s, most Arab Muslims feared the Iranians and their Shi’a dogma becoming so powerful and recently, there has been admiration on the part of the Arabs for the way Iran “stands up” to the United States and Geroge W Bush (who the Arabs call “bosh” meaning “nothing”)