I can’t imagine worse PR than initiating an attack right after everyone shakes hands on a “roadmap” for peace. Seriously, what could Sharon have been thinking?
Someone’s going to come into this thread in a minute and say “why are you criticising Sharon - what about Hamas” - remember, Hamas attacked a border control post and killed 4 IDF soldiers (IIRC) a couple of days before that, and then blew up a load of innocent people on a bus afterwards.
But the difference is, of course, that Sharon signed up to the roadmap. Hamas are deliberately trying to scupper it.
My answers: it was opportunism? Or the shaking hands on the roadmap and the dismantling of a few unauthorised settlements was purely cosmetic - it’s actually business as usual.
Or maybe Sharon doesn’t want the roadmap to work either, but doesn’t want to publicly alienate Bush? These attacks so often lead to ‘reprisal’ attacks on innocent Israeli citizens - he must have known that something similar was going to happen.
What a bunch of idiots. And to think I thought we were making progress getting Arafat out of the picture and seeing Sharon and Abbas sitting down and trying. This whole thing has me completely disgusted. It really makes you wonder (once again) if their will ever be peace over there when there are so many on both sides who just want war.
Like firing missiles into city streets killing and wounding dozens including women and children is any different from blowing up a disco.
It’s like watching the Crips and the Bloods and after a while wondering “why bother?” As long as they want to kill each other, they’re going to kill each other.
From www.israelnationalnews.com:
The IDF, doggedly trying to get its point across, explained once again today that well before Israel’s attempted assassination of Hamas leader Rantisi on Tuesday, Hamas was trying to suicide-bomb Israelis all over the country. Israeli forces caught twenty such would-be murderers in the past month - half of them since the Aqaba summit over a week ago. In addition, the terrorist who committed yesterday’s carnage departed on his mission “a few days ago,” according to high-level security officials.
Bill H., I’ll just let Lileks talk for me, in today’s Bleat:
“Israel attempts to take out a terror leader; Hamas ‘responds’ with a bombing. As if they’re equal. As if targeting the car that ferries around some murderous SOB is the same as sending a blissed-out teenager to blow nails and screws through the flesh of afternoon commuters so he can bury himself in the heaving bosom of the heavenly whorehouse. Cycle of violence, don’t you know.”
Didn’t a number of (presumably Palestinian) civilians die in the Israeli strike?
The roadmap to peace is an effort between two leaders. Hamas has a different agenda and presumably always will.
Jjimm said, “Or maybe Sharon doesn’t want the roadmap to work either”
I think he’d like it to work, but he’s not about to let the terrorists push him around.
I don’t see an end to it. Ever. Even if the officials come to an agreement, there are too many people on either side that will disagree with that decision. This is round 2,061,592 of a fight that will never end.
How depressing I’m sure many a people said the same thing about sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, all the Middle East is some political leader with the balls to take on thier own extremists, who have nothing to gain from peace.
In a short point, I still have faith in diplomacy, and the endearing human spirit.
and my typos too 
On a Northern Ireland parallell, think of the PLA as Sinn Féin. Think of Hamas as the RIRA, blowing up Omagh. And imagine the British armed forces firing missiles from helicopter gunships into funerals in the Falls Road.
and my typos too
(1010 WINS) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – In the third Israeli airstrike in 24 hours, Israeli helicopters fired several missiles at the car of a Hamas fugitive Thursday, killing seven people, including the wanted man, his wife and 2-year-old daughter. The latest spike in violence - 35 Israelis and Palestinians killed and more than 130 wounded in two days - suggested a new stage in the 32-month-old conflict, with Israel and Hamas threatening to fight each other to the finish.Hamas said it would unleash multiple attacks and urged foreigners to leave Israel for their safety. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that despite a new U.S.-backed peace plan, he would hunt Palestinian militants “to the bitter end.”
—Well. That’s . . . Hmmm. I agree with Kalhoun. There is never going to be “peace” in the Mideast, unless you mean the peace of the grave.
would a multinational peaceforce be a good thing or a bad thing?
If there’s to be peace, its the Only thing*.
*As long as their are equal rules of engagement regarding both sides of the conflict.
This post pretty much answers the question.
Abu Mazen never took security responsibility over the Hamas, therefore he did nothing to stop them and Israel had to do the job.
Furthermore, there never even WAS a cease fire with the Hamas because of those 10 suicide bombers caught before Rantisi’s assasination attempt, it was merely a matter of luck that no bomber blew up earlier.
I don’t know, I figured it was pretty much a given that Hamas would always be looking for opportunities to bomb Israelis until (and of course, if) Araftat could keep them in line. I don’t doubt that the guy deserved to be killed nor do I disagree with the notion that sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. What boggles my mind is that someone from the Ministry of Not Looking Like a Turd, didn’t step up and say, “Ummmmm dudes, it’s probably better not to launch hellfires into a crowded bazaar the morning after we shake hands for peace.”