THE BLOOD ON HAMAS' HANDS

Nobody with a conscience can look at the images of destruction and human suffering on the streets of Gaza without flinching. The pictures of the civilian victims of Israeli air strikes _ especially children _ are heart-rending. But let's keep straight whose fault this tragedy is: Hamas, the fanatical Islamists who rule Gaza and who have used the land as a launching pad for firing rockets into Israel.

In 2005, Israel withdrew its military and Israeli settlers from occupied Gaza and turned the land over to the Palestinians. Fearing that Gaza would become a terror base, Israel retained control over the flow of goods and people into Gaza. The next year, Gazans voted in Hamas _ a terrorist organization whose charter commits itself to the destruction of Israel and the demonization of Palestinian peacemakers.

After the Hamas takeover, Israel imposed restrictions on goods and people entering and leaving Gaza, out of a well-founded fear that Hamas would turn Gaza into a terror statelet. That they have done, despite Israel's vigilance. Since 2005, Hamas and other Gazan terrorists have fired more than 6,000 rockets into Israel.

No state can permit its citizens to live under that kind of mortal threat, as President-elect Barack Obama acknowledged during the campaign. Israel is acting in self-defense. Yes, the Israelis have inflicted far more casualties on the Gazans than the Gazans have on them, but that is because Hamas deliberately and evilly locates its military resources among civilians, cynically hoping for a propaganda victory.

Don't forget that Israel is committed to a peace process and a two-state solution. Hamas despises both. There can be no peace as long as Hamas is a player. And yet, the violence Israel brings against Hamas threatens to undermine its own long-term regional position. The short-term goal has to be returning to a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza _ without, one hopes, the jihadists of Hamas.

Someday and somehow, the peace process must resume. May the next American president have more luck on this front than the current one did.

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The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, Dec. 30:

HAMAS GETS ITS WISH

Israel bombarded Hamas security targets in the Gaza Strip for the third straight day on Monday, and much of the world screamed in protest that Israel has overreacted.

It makes you wonder what would have happened if there had been such international outrage back in June, when the first rockets fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip disrupted a cease-fire that was just days old.

What would have happened if there had been such outrage when the rocket attacks from Gaza began to escalate a few weeks ago? Or if there had been outrage when Hamas formally declared on Dec. 18 that it was ending the six-month truce with Israel?

Instead, the world watched this build into yet another war in the Middle East. Hamas has gotten its wish.

It has been a little more than three years since Israel pulled its last troops from Gaza, ending its 38-year occupation. The aftermath: a violent power struggle in Gaza between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. A takeover of Gaza by the forces of Hamas. A heightened threat on Israel's border from an organization that has called for its destruction.

A truce that was no truce. And a steady rise in provocations that have led, once again, to war.

Would that there had been international outrage as all this was building.

Israel appears to be mobilizing for a ground assault. Perhaps Israel has unleashed such a punishing air response because it wants to avoid an invasion and reoccupation of Gaza. Israeli leaders surely recall their disastrous 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which created deep political divisions in Israel. Perhaps Israel _ which has elections coming in a few weeks _ hopes to impress Hamas by air, by reducing Hamas' command structure to rubble, so a ground invasion will not be necessary to halt the rocket fire from Gaza.

Has this been a "disproportionate" response, as Israel's critics contend? What would be a "proportionate" response? Military strikes that bloody the citizens of Gaza, that leave the citizens of Israel still at risk, and that perpetuate a simmering war?

Short-term, the best hope is that Hamas is sobered into accepting a renewed cease-fire. But the reality remains: There will be no peace in the Middle East and no prosperity for the people of Gaza as long as the provocateurs of Hamas are in charge.

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The following editorial appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday, Dec. 30:

BUSH SHARES BLAME IN GAZA

Not much has changed in the eight years since George W. Bush became president with regard to brokering a lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Hope itself remains elusive, with measured violence threatening to mushroom into another war.

Indeed, "war" was how Defense Minister Ehud Barak described Israel's three days of air strikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. By Monday, the response to Hamas' rocket attacks on Jewish settlements in southern Israel had left more than 300 Palestinians dead, about 50 believed to be civilians.

The death toll set off a torrent of verbal fusillades from Hamas supporters in the greater Shiite Muslim community, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran as well as Hezbollah's leaders in Lebanon.