Mere Rhetoric: Hamas Murders Israelis Then Reacts To Israeli Retaliation By Running Behind UN's Skirts, Promising To Behave. Again.

So typical. First soldiers of the Palestinian government commit weeks and weeks of war crimes, indiscriminately firing rockets into Israeli population centers. Israel at first declined to retaliate, figuring partly that occasional rocket barrages are the cost of being Jewish in the Middle East, partly that Hamas and Fatah were doing fine retaliating against each other on their own, and partly that the international community would limit Israel's maneuvering room anyway. Then - inevitably - someone got killed and Israel had to defend its citizens.

So of course within days the Palestinians ran to hide behind the UN's skirts:

The U.N. Security Council should "shoulder its responsibilities" and call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, as well as consider sending international observers to monitor it, the Palestinian U.N. observer said Thursday. Riyad Mansour said it is time for the U.N.'s most powerful body, which has been paralyzed on Palestinian-Israeli issues, to help restore peace and stop escalating attacks and arrests by Israel.

Despite the UN's past enthusiasm in shielding Israel's Arab enemies from the consequences of their own actions, the Hamas leadership is fearful that the world won't be able to leash Israel in time. So they're also going with their backup playground-like plan of suckerpunching Israel and then promising not to do it again if only Israel will not retaliate:

Spokesmen from the warring factions in the Palestinian Authority were considering a halt to Kassam rocket fire, in return for an Israeli truce - specifically and end to IAF tactical operations - in the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Saturday morning. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza said that his organization would wait to see how the coming 48 hours would play out and then decide whether to abide by a truce.

The beautiful thing about this Hamas strategy is that Israel, retaliating less than a week after deadly strikes on Israeli schools and hospitals, ends up getting blamed for starting the violence. The Hamas leadership boasts about how their brave soldiers are striking blow after blow against the Zionist Jews, and then as soon as Israel defend itself Hamas gets to call a time-out. And if Israel actually has the nerve to try to hold someone accountable for Hamas's war crimes - well, the world's press will scream about how Israel is "breaking the fragile 48-hour truce". This happens every. single. time.

References:
* Olmert Government Not So Much With the Cleaning Out Gaza, Relieving Sderot [MR]
* Hamas, Fatah head to Egypt for talks [JPost]
* Palestinians want Security Council to call for immediate cease-fire [IHT]

Previously:
* Hezbollah Gloats - We Spent A Month Hiding Behind the UN's Skirts, So We Won!
* The Joke That Was Sa'adat's Sentence - How the Palestinian Authority Meets Its Obligations When It's Not Busy Violating Them
* Hezbollah And Hamas Escalate Kidnapping Rhetoric, Attempts