What do you see?

This weekend, Hamas agreed to a one-week cease fire in the latest battle of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. I was reading several articles about the conflict and wondering at the Israeli's restraint.

What do I mean? Imagine yourself in a country surrounded on three sides by enemies. Israel is surrounded by Hezbollah in south Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Fatah controled West Bank, Gaza (controlled by Hamas) and Egypt. Hezbollah is backed financially and militarily by Iran. Iran on its own wants Israel to be a smoking hole in the ground, but finds it more convenient to pay Hezbollah to fight its battle. Hamas gets military and financial help too from the Sunni branch of the Arab world. The only truely friendly neighbor is the Mediteranean Sea.

So imagine yourself sitting in the middle of this snake pit and one of your neighbors considers it their 'right' to indiscriminately lob rockets into your country. Please note, these rockets aren't aimed at military targets. The target is Israel, so like a good jihadist all you need to do it aim in an easterly direction and fire.

Israel is willing to negotiate with Hamas. Hamas was negotiating with Israel via Egypt. At the same time, Hamas sanctioned continued rocket attacks. Hamas is both the government of Gaza and a terrorist group.

So what do you do?

There is no way Israel can stop the rocket attacks directly. Israel already tried to negotiate and that just wasn't working. Israel's only real hope if to make the situation in Gaza so dire that the Palestinian people sue for peace. They made a good start of it, but I don't think they've gone far enough. The Hamas leadership does not have the self restraint to stop the rocket attacks. Only when the Palestinian people living in Gaza decry 'Enough!' will Hamas find the capacity to stop. And if they don't stop they may just find themselves alone in the street where the people used to welcome them indoors.

I don't believe that the indiscriminate killing of civilians is right however, Israel has shown restraint and was taken advantage of by Hamas. The law of war, yes, the law of war, says that both sides must comply. If one commits a barbarous act, then his enemy is allowed to retaliate.

Hamas is pushing the conflict towards total war. I think Israel is better equiped to wage a total war. Hamas may just die for their beliefs. I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope there is some sense in Hamas. We shall see.