Isreal's war with the Hamas death cult

NY Times:

Israeli troops seized 64 members of Hamas in the West Bank on Thursday, including a third of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 legislators, a move that Israeli officials said indicated a significant change in Israel's policy toward the Hamas government.

The seizures are partly intended to warn Hamas leaders that they could lose their power and liberty, if not their lives, unless they act to release a captured Israeli soldier, a senior Israeli military official said. But Israel has also concluded that Hamas, which had largely kept to a cease-fire before, is now openly engaged in violent acts against Israel and must be treated differently.

It was unclear what would happen to those held if the Israeli soldier were released, but the officials described the seizures as part of a plan well beyond seeking that.

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In explaining the shift toward Hamas, Israeli officials said Thursday that they had agreed to let Palestinian parliamentary elections go ahead five months ago, despite the participation of Hamas, under American pressure.

Hamas won the elections and formed a government that Israel and its allies have worked to weaken, especially through economic pressure, in an effort to get it to recognize Israel and forswear violence.

"So long as they were smart enough not to openly exercise terror, no one touched them," said the senior Israeli military officer. "But now they've gone back to it, so we have the right to deal differently with this terrorist government and try to remove them."

The Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, said Thursday: "The masquerade ball is over. The suits and ties will not serve as cover to the involvement and support of kidnappings and terror."

The Israelis cited Hamas's firing of Qassam rockets beginning this month, its public declaration that the cease-fire with Israel was over and its open involvement in the raid into Israeli territory early Sunday that resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of a wounded corporal, Gilad Shalit, 19.

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Hamas leadership has shown little wisdom since taking office. the Palestinian Authority is a begger entity because the Palestinians refuse to engage in productive enterprise and its people have become dependent on the charity of others rather than work. Its main product is the breeding of ordinance sending its young out to explode around Israelis. It is awash in victimhood and that is all it has to offer in negotiations. It has never offered anything of value that it could deliver in return for peace.