Really? This is what they're going with?

Israeli warplanes and helicopters bombarded military targets across the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, retaliating for Palestinian rocket fire into Israel with one of the deadliest assaults in the history of the 60-year conflict. As Palestinian officials put the death toll at 230 and said many were unarmed civilians, the scale of the bloodshed unsettled the Middle East and alarmed world leaders involved in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts... Despite the heavy blow to their paramilitary organization, Hamas fighters in Gaza launched at least 130 rockets into Israel, killing a man and wounding six others in the border community of Netivot. Israeli officials warned that the surprise offensive, apparently aimed at restoring a recently lapsed cease-fire on terms more favorable to Israel, was only beginning. Hundreds of Israeli troops massed along the Gaza border early today, and civilians on both sides braced for heavy combat in the days ahead.

No. Israel is seeking to restore the cease-fire on exactly the same terms. Which is a different way of saying that Israel is attacking Hamas to get them to stop launching rockets at Israeli civilians every day. And - moreover - this was in no way a "surprise offensive." Yes it was brilliantly launched one day earlier than Hamas thought it could happen. But it's not like Israel just woke up yesterday morning and decided to go to war.

Hamas all but literally called for this war. They very explicitly campaigned this year for total war against Israel. They've been boasting for years that Israel won't dare mount a Gaza invasion for fear of a Lebanon-II style debacle. Only a few days ago they were mocking Israeli restraint at the same time that every major Israeli politician was warning them to stop their months of unceasing rocket attacks. I mean, come on:

In a statement by Hamas' military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, a spokesperson warned that "thousands of additional Israelis will soon be within the range of our rockets if Israel continues with its aggression." "The residents of the south will stay in the bomb shelters for a long time," the Hamas statement continued, adding that "threats of an [Israeli] military offensive don't scare us because we are more prepared than ever." All Israeli towns within a 30-kilometer radius of the Gaza Strip were hooked up on Wednesday to an early warning system designed to deliver rocket launch alerts. Among the newly-connected towns and cities are Ofakim and Netivot.

And that was before Israel decided that enough was enough. Hamas's eliminationist propaganda is surreal and pathological. They've got talking bunnies who lecture children about how Tel Aviv - a city founded by Zionists in 1909 - was conquered by evil Jews and will be re-conquered by Palestinians. They're committed to an unceasing war. That they're attacking now - despite a convergence of Israeli elections, Palestinian elections, and a US transition - shows that they really believe their own propaganda about impending divine victory. Marginal arguments about tactics and temporary ceasefires and negotiations aside: you have to be either a propagandist or an idiot to say that this is somehow Israel's fault.

References and previously after the jump...