But Israel refuses, and while it agreed to "lessen" the siege as a condition of the Egypt negotiated ceasefire, they never did. I gather they want to continue the pain on Gazans on the basis of some rediculous notion that the people who voted Hamas in will overthrow them now. An unlikely event.

Of course you can also read wiser analysts who attribute the strife on the upcoming election and the fact that the Labor-Kadima is predicted to lose by the polls. As such. the slaughter of "Arabs" makes a great beginning to the next Israeli election.

A more relevant question is, why, if Israel really wants the rockets to stop, did it reward Hamas for four months of quiet by launching major air and ground attacks starting November 4 (I am sure they did not choose that date because they knew the world would be riveted on the U.S. elections)? Hamas had not only kept the ceasefire by stopping its own attacks, it did a very creditable job of reining in other groups such as Islamic Jihad, which is anything but an easy task. And yet their reward was an escalating series of major attacks in which they killed around 25 Palestinians, including several children.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that having rockets (not missiles - these are unguided, mostly homemade rockets using fertilizer as an explosive, and many of them do not even carry explosives) fired at them is not a legitimate concern, Bob. What we ARE saying is very different from that.

As for what Hamas knew or did not know, that is only speculation. Chances are Hamas did knew that no matter how meticulously they kept the ceasefire, and no matter how successful they were in keeping other groups from firing, Israel would be the one to break it as they have broken the overwhelming majority of the ceasefires in the past. And yet they kept the ceasefire very well for about 4.5 months before Israel made a series of  major land and air attacks, and killing Palestinian adults and children. Why did Israel break the cease fire as they have nearly every other cease fire?

And then there is the other huge piece of non-compliance by Israel. One of the terms of the cease fire that Israel agreed to was the lifting of the blockade. Israel not only did not lift the blockade, THEY TIGHTENED IT. And yet, Hamas kept the cease fire until Israel broke it repeatedly, making major attacks, and killing around 25 Palestinians.

And by the way, the current blockade, which is collective punishment and therefore a war crime in this case rising to the level of a crime against humanity, was not because of the rockets being shot into Israel, but punishment for the Palestinian people for the crime of electing the wrong people.