"Cry 'Fetch!' and let slip the dogs of war" Julius Caesar, Act III, Sc. i

While condemned as "disproportionate," Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza are the only appropriate response to daily terror. As the U.N. Charter says, when they shoot at you, you can shoot back.
The Palestinians, the late Israeli leader Abba Eban once said, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew to its international border with Gaza and gave peace a chance.
On taking power in Gaza, Hamas decided that rather than build a viable infrastructure with foreign assistance, feed and educate its people and pick up the trash, it would rather turn Gaza into a launching pad for Kasam rockets targeted on Israeli civilians.
After three years of ceaseless rocket and mortar barrages, Israel has decided to exercise its right to self-defense in what the likes of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon call a "disproportionate response." Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "For us to be asked to have (another) cease-fire with Hamas is like asking (America) to have a cease-fire with al-Qaida."
Their response is an Israeli version of shock and awe. After a year of gathering intelligence, Israel launched a devastating series of surgical strikes targeting Hamas base and training camps, headquarters and underground Kasam rocket launchers placed in bunkers and silos. The time had passed for trying to send Hamas a message by bombing empty buildings in the middle of the night.
Considering that Hamas has adopted Hezbollah's standard practice of locating command and control centers, and communications, arsenals and training facilities, documented civilian casualties are minimal while some 300 terrorist deaths have been reported.
Israel is still suffering from its failure to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 as promised. That war began with cross-border incursions by both Hezbollah and Hamas in which Israeli soldiers were seized. There too Tel Aviv was accused of a "disproportionate response" by a U.N. that had silently watched Hezbollah turn Lebanon into an armed camp.
Hamas undoubtedly felt emboldened. Hezbollah has translated its victory into political power in Beirut, obtaining a veto in the Cabinet and preparing for further inroads in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Even now, the U.N. and its "peacekeepers" permit Iran's puppet to rearm far beyond its prewar levels.
Hezbollah is an Iranian creation. Hamas is not. But we can't ignore the Iranian connection.
Much of Hamas' imported weaponry, and the expertise with which it now produces the rockets it uses to bombard Israeli border towns and villages, comes from Iran. Dozens of its top commanders have received training in Iran.
Sheik Yazeeb Khader, a Hamas political activist and editor based in Ramallah in the West Bank, recently told the Washington Times that the current turmoil in Lebanon is part of an inexorable process that began in Gaza when Hamas wrested control and will spread across the Middle East:
"What happened in Gaza in 2007 is an achievement, now it is happening in 2008 in Lebanon.
"It's going to happen in 2009 in Jordan, and it's going to happen in 2010 in Egypt," Khader said in the interview. "We are seeing a redrawing of the map of the Middle East where the forces of resistance and steadfastness are the ones moving the things on the ground."
Israel is determined to avoid a repetition of its Lebanese failure in Gaza. Such surgical strikes, however, may not be enough to end the threat. As we found out in Iraq, it may require boots on the ground going house to house and room to room.
Perhaps this time Israel will not lose its resolve in the face of international pressure, and finish the job.