Well, I, for one, agree with you on pretty much all counts and reject the characterization of terrorist organizations like Hamas as "resistance groups".  It won't be until both sides acknowledge that there is fault on their own side of the conflict that a true peace will be possible.  Hamas is part of the problem, not the solution.

"But honestly, what should Israel do?"

Listen to Bush for a change: "the military occupation must stop" and create "a contiguous Palestinian state," presumably consisting of the West Bank and Gaza.

Anyone who doesn't understand that Israel's brutal 40 year occupation/colonization of the Palestinian territories is the fundamental cause of all of it is just not getting it. Already, we are hearing from the Israeli government that because of one red herring or another, this time Hamas or Hezbollah, it is unlikely that there will be a peace agreement with the Palestinians by the end of Bush's term. What? Didn't everyone who knows the history of Israel's avoidance of peace initiatives predict that? Why? The Greater Israel dream persists. In the meantime, Road Map or no Road Map, ethnic cleansing and the building or new settlements and the enlargement of others continues unabated.

Hamas, by the way, is hardly a terrorist organization given that it arose to right the military occupation during the First Intifada, and continues to do so. The reasoning that the occupation was over when Israel pulled its settlements out of Gaza is simply not true as seen by IDF actions in the West Bank.

Hamas as terrorist is simply an extension of the larger myth that Palestinians are terrorists, not a people living under military occupation, that was invoked by the Israel PR machine after the Second Intifada. See Peace, Propaganda, & The Promised Land (click below). As for Hamas' preconditions, I believe that Israel wants it to agree to accept "the existence of Israel as a Jewish state," which is hardly something any Palestinian would agree to. The "existence" meme, of course, is just another red herring used by the Israel government to avoid peace negotiations.

It really gets tiresome listening to the excuses that are part of the perennial deception.

Follow Bush lead: "the military occupation must stop" and "there must be a contiguous Palestinian state." Those are not his exact words, but this entire conflict for the past 40 years has been Israel's military occupation, whose sole purpose has been to colonize Palestinian lands.

What does one expect Israel to do? Stop the causes of the Sderot rocketing, which has killed and wounded innocent Israelis over the years, including children. Instead Israel imposes one red herring after another to avoid peace initiatives, in apparent hope that no one will notice on some future date that it has annexed Judea and Samaria (west Bank) into Israel proper.

And no, the military occupation did not stop when Sharon pulled the settlements out of Gaza. In fact, the colonization activity on the West Bank increased, with new settlements, the expansion of existing settlements, and, with respect to the so-called illegal settlements (all settlements are illegal according to international law), a change in their names so that they could become part of the nearest "legal" settlements. It is all bullshit and it just never stops.

Contrary to apparent realities, and while everyone wishes the rocketing would stop, Israel needs Hamas to avoid the Bush-Rice peace initiative, which it has already indicated will not likely come about.

Right on! I'm a liberal Dem, not a leftist. The rampant anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias on the far left is disgusting.

NY Dem is correct. If Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel, the IDF will stop.

I abhor the inadvertent deaths of any civilians anywhere and the use of human shields by any party.

"Only a true anti-Semite would compare what's going on in Israel and Gaza to the Holocaust."

That would seem to be Israel's deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai, who invoked the comparison as a hypothetical in threatening retaliation toward the Palestinians in Gaza. However, that the rocketing itself is retaliation is not well recognized.

Yonatan Mendel, a correspondent for the Israeli news agency Walla, in an article about how Israel uses propaganda in reporting on the IP conflict, said the following:

Interviewing Abu-Qusay, the spokesman of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Gaza, in June 2007, I asked him about the rationale for firing Qassam missiles at the Israeli town of Sderot. `The army might respond,' I said, not realising that I was already biased. `But we are responding here,' Abu-Qusay said. `We are not terrorists, we do not want to kill . . . we are resisting Israel's continual incursions into the West Bank, its attacks, its siege on our waters and its closure on our lands.' Abu-Qusay's words were translated into Hebrew, but Israel continued to enter the West Bank every night and Israelis did not find any harm in it. After all it was only a response.

Reality has a liberal bias. Get used to it. In this case the antiIsrael rhetoric stems mainly from its 40 year military occupation of the Palestinian people, whose sole purpose, if you know anything at all about this conflict, is the theft and colonization of their lands. That is what the rocketer is complaining about. Although in the most recent episode I am aware of, the rocketing was done in retaliation for the killing of five militants, in some wider sense, it is all about the freedom and self-determination.

If you have shielded yourself from what the military occupation has meant day to day for the Palestinians, then I suggest that you read up on it. The sites reporting daily activities and the readings are voluminous. If you come back still supporting what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and why then you should probably complain elsewhere.

PS: regarding this: "accepts Israel's right to exist." This is an obvious obstacle for two reasons: first, the correct precondition is that the Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, which no Palestinian would ever agree to, and Olmert knows that (hence another red herring); and second, when has Israel ever accept the rights of the Palestinians right to exist in their own state, in what is only 22% of what was once their homeland?

In regard to the latter point, look up the political platforms of the three major Israeli parties: Likud, Kadima, and Labor regarding the platforms. If you can find a two state solution in any of them, let me know. Kimura wrote an article reprinted in the Electronic Intifada about this conundrum. Look it up. In 60 years, Israel has never planned for peace with the Palestinians in the form of statehood. Just the opposite: it has avoided every effort to settle the conflict. Look up Jeff Halper's (ICAHD)article, The Problem with Israel, and some of his later writings concerning Israel's strategy to avoid peace at all costs.